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Source: Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS - The Associated Press via Individual Inc. : The freighter Bright Field, which lost power and crashed into a crowded, glass-fronted mall Saturday afternoon, is operated by COSCO Shipping Co. Ltd. of Hong Kong.
- COSCO is the world's No. 4 shipping company, measured by tonnage and dead weight, according to a list from the December 1995 ``Containerization Weekly'' cited on that company's site on the World Wide Web.
- The list put it behind Sealand, Maersk Line, and Evergreen.
- COSCO owns, manages and operates 78 vessels, most of them bulk cargo carriers like the Bright Field, which was hauling 70 tons of grain and was registered in Liberia.
- The Bright Field, at 68,200 deadweight tons, is among the larger cargo ships in the fleet. It can carry up to 81,337 metric tons of grain, and can travel up to 14 knots.
- The company's name is short for China Ocean Shipping Co., and it is the core of COSCO Group, which was founded in 1961 and has more than 300 subsidiaries.
- COSCO's ships carry more than 24 million tons a year of food, grain, fertilizer, steel, coal, ore, feed, agricultural products and wood, the company said.
- ``The vessels are trading worldwide, plying between ports on five continents and in 21 trading areas,'' it said.
- Grain is the company's biggest cargo, making up more than 32 percent of its total.
- The Coast Guard said it inspected the Bright Field in June, but did not board the ship.
[12-14-96 at 23:58 EST, Copyright 1996, The Associated Press] RBBI Note - For additional COSCO information, see their web site at http://www.cosco.com.hk:80/shipping.htm.
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