Westwood Shipping Lines and Star Shipping Sign Space Charter Agreement

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FEDERAL WAY, Wash. / VANCOUVER, B.C. – Westwood Shipping Lines and Norway’s Star Shipping have filed a Westbound Sailing and Space Charter Agreement with U.S. and Canadian regulators. Under the agreement, Star and Westwood will coordinate sailing schedules in order to allow vessel space to be shared. All regulatory requirements are expected to be met within 30 days, with operations to begin in late February.

We are enthusiastic about this agreement which will benefit customers with improved service levels in the Pacific Northwest / Northeast Asia trade. Through this agreement we expect to realize service improvements and operational efficiencies, while eliminating operational redundancies.

The companies will maintain separate Sales and Marketing organizations for the routes affected by this agreement.

The new Westbound Sailing and Space Charter agreement covers three Services:

Service 1

Service 1 will deploy four vessels operating on a 56 day round-trip voyage, providing fortnightly service from the Pacific Northwest to Japan and Korea. These vessels will be operated by Westwood Shipping, which will in turn space charter dedicated Westbound space to Star Shipping. Port coverage will include Seattle, Vancouver B.C. , Longview, Squamish and Crofton in North America; and Hitachinaka, Tokyo Bay, Shimizu, Nagoya, Osaka, Hakata and Busan in the Far East.

Service 2

Service 2 will also deploy four vessels operating on a coordinated 56 day round-trip voyage providing fortnightly service from the Pacific Northwest to Japan and Korea. Two vessels will be operated by Star Shipping and two by Westwood Shipping. These coordinated sailings provide port coverage from Seattle, Squamish, and Vancouver B.C. in North America, to Tomakomai, Nagoya, Tokyo Bay, Osaka, Busan, Hachinohe, Kunsan and Inchon in the Far East.

Service 3

Service 3 will be operated by Star Shipping who will continue to provide monthly sailings from the West Coast of North America to Korea and China.

Star Shipping, founded in 1961, is owned by two major shipowners; the Grieg Group of Bergen, Norway and Masterbulk of Singapore wholly owned by the Westfal-Larsen family of Bergen, Norway. Star Shipping is the world's leading wood pulp carrier transporting about 5.5 million mt of pulp per year to destinations worldwide. The Star open hatch fleet includes 46 wholly owned gantry craned vessels operating in a global trading pattern. The company operates out of 22 offices, all manned by highly skilled and experienced shipping people, located in key locations around the world.

Westwood Shipping Lines, a wholly owned subsidiary of Weyerhaeuser Company, traces its roots back to 1892 when Weyerhaeuser launched its water transportation service. Westwood was founded in 1981, and began its transpacific service in 1982. Westwood is committed to providing safe and reliable transportation alternatives to meet the specialized needs of customers in 3 unique business segments: Containers, Forest Products and Oversized cargo.

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