A leading U.S. carrier in Micronesia, Matson Navigation, is on a path to become the largest shipping carrier in the Pacific for 2013.
On December 26, 2012, Matson Incorporated signed an agreement to acquire the primary assets of Reef Shipping. Reef shipping is a South Pacific Shipping Company, based in Auckland, New Zealand, which has serviced for years the core trade lanes from Auckland, New Zealand and Fiji to the islands nations of Nauru, the Solomon Islands, Tahiti, Samoa, Cook Islands, Niue, Tonga, Wallis and Futuna, Vanuatu, Tarawa and Majuro.
Matson acquired Reef Shipping’s four vessels and 1500 containers and is set to take over the company’s operations this month.
Matson CEO Matt Cox states that “while the [acquisition of Reef Shipping] is relatively small, it complements [the company’s] growing network of Pacific island services,” as the company is now expanding into the South Pacific.
In the weeks prior to this, Matson partnered up with Kyowa Shipping to offer new routes between Asia to Guam and Micronesia.
These two companies signed an agreement to operate a three-ship rotation serving ports in South Korea, Japan, Guam, CNMI, Palau, Marshall Islands, and Federated States of Micronesia.
Vic Angoco, Matson’s senior vice president of Pacific operations, states that “For Matson’s customers, the new agreement with Kyowa will allow [Matson] to offer fixed-day arrivals every two weeks to the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of Palau,”
Angoco further states that with Matson’s overall expansion in the region, “the assets deployed will ensure greater reliability for all of the ports in the Pacific region.
Matson, founded in 1882, has been the leading U.S. carrier in Micronesia. Formerly, it only provided shipping services to Hawaii, Guam and Micronesia in the Pacific. With the additional routes and assets under the company’s belt, the company is set to become one of the largest shipping carriers in the Pacific region as a whole.