March 1９, 2004

MOL Wins Order for Ocean Transport of Railroad Cars
for Taiwan's High-Speed Train
- Project marks the first export of Japanese Shinkansen bullet trains -

TOKYO - Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd. (MOL; President: Kunio Suzuki) today announced that the company has received an order from Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd., to ship 360 "bullet train" railroad cars from Japan to Taiwan.

Shipping summary
MOL will transport all 360 completed railroad cars for Taiwan's bullet train system (12 cars per train x 30 trains). This is a part of the mechanical and electrical system ordered from Taiwan Shinkansen Corporation by Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation. Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Nippon Sharyo, Ltd., and Hitachi, Ltd. manufacture the cars.

Loading ports: Kobe (Hyogo Pref.), Toyohashi (Aichi Pref.), and Kudamatsu (Yamaguchi Pref.)
Discharging port: Kaohsiung (Taiwan)
Transport schedule: From May 2004 to September 2005; 30 voyages with one train of 12 railroad cars per voyage.
Other: The lead car of each Taiwan bullet train is 27m long, and the rest of the cars are 25m. MOL will use long-hatch "tween-deckers" designed to accommodate long cargoes such as railroad cars. The main vessels on this project will be two new heavy lifters launched last year and early this year -Gaia Triumph and the Poseidon Triumph (150-ton lifting capacity, 12,000 DWT).

Taiwan Shinkansen bullet train
The Taiwan bullet train will link Taipei and Kaohsiung, a distance of 345 km, with high-speed service slated to start in the fall of 2005. Taiwan Shinkansen Corp., consisting of seven Japanese companies -Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd., Toshiba Corp., Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd., Mitsui & Co., Mitsubishi Corp., Marubeni Corp., and Sumitomo Corp. - won the contract for this project in 2000. This project marks the first use of Japan's Shinkansen system outside Japan, and the first export of Japanese "bullet trains." The export model, based on the Series 700 Shinkansen, is called the Taiwan High Speed 700T train.