UAL, BOCS Launch New Shipping Line

Universal Africa Lines (UAL) and Bremen Overseas Chartering and Shipping (BOCS) have launched a new liner service to the Caribbean and the east coast of South America.

The two companies have already partnered on a successful liner service from the Mediterranean and Black Sea to West Africa, which was launched in 2022.

The new joint venture – UBSL Caribbean Line – will be headquartered in the Dutch town of Capelle aan den Ijssel and will draw on UAL and BOCS’ existing fleet consisting of 21 modern geared MPP vessels ranging from 4,354 dwt to 33.000 dwt and up to 360 tons lifting capacity.

The service will start with monthly sailings passing through the ports of Aberdeen and Antwerp with other ports along the route on inducement. La Brea and Point Lisas in Trinidad, Georgetown in Guyana and Paramaribo in Suriname have been selected as the discharge ports.

The service can be further extended to Brazil based on inducement, UAL said.

“UAL has been running a liner service from the U.S. to the Caribbean and South America already and has seen a growing demand from its clients for a similar service originating in northwest Europe,” said Harald Maas, director of UAL. “So it was only logical after our joint venture in the Mediterranean that we would start this new adventure together with our good partner BOCS. We will continue to build on our success.”


UAL and BOCS are joint exhibitors at Breakbulk Europe.