Eimskip to expand shipping service between Iceland and Maine

Icelandic shipping company Eimskip, which moved its operational headquarters  to Portland, Maine in 2013, announced on 25 September it will begin weekly service in December.

The company imported USD 283.4 million (EUR 240.3 million) worth of products – primarily frozen fish – into Maine in 2016, according to the Portland Press Herald. It also exported USD 118.2 million (EUR 100.2 million) worth of products, including USD 2.8 million (EUR 2.4 million) worth of lobsters.

“The businesses we have been dealing with need the weekly service,” Eimskip USA Director Larus Isfeld told the Press Herald. “They all have weekly inventory and sales cycles, it is difficult to work with them if we don’t have weekly service. It is going to be very important for them, and for us, to get to that level.”

The new shipping schedule will shuttle Eimskip ships between Reykjavik and Portland weekly, with additional stops in Halifax, Nova Scotia and Argentia, Newfoundland. Via Reykjavik, products shipped through Eimskip can then travel through the company’s extensive shipping network across Scandinavia, the United Kingdom, and Northern Europe.

Isfeld said the Maine Port Authority’s work to improve infrastructure in the port, which has seen about USD 45 million (EUR 38.2 million) in public and private investment since 2009, has been crucial to Eimskip’s expansion. Most recently, the local council in Portland approved a zoning change that will allow AmeriCold to build a large cold-storage warehouse near the marine terminal where Eimskip’s operations are based.