San Antonio Terminal Internacional, operated by Hanseatic Global Terminals and SSA Marine, is already working to dispatch the first vessel of the 2025-2026 cherry season. This is the MSC Lome V, which has approximately 1,700 moves scheduled, of which about 500 correspond to cherries, thus initiating the Alpaca service and, at the same time, the direct route to Asia known as the Cherry Express.
“STI is currently the port with the greatest refrigerated container storage capacity in Chile and the main departure point for the country’s cherry exports. We work in a coordinated manner with the entire logistics chain and agricultural producers, making available the most modern infrastructure in the country and the operational continuity that distinguishes us, to ensure that every stage of the process is impeccable,” said the general manager of STI, Andrés Albertini.
The vessel marks the beginning of the cherry shipments and is the inaugural call of MSC’s new Alpaca service, which offers more speed and was optimized with Smart Reefer technology, precisely for handling this type of cargo.
From MSC, the regional operations manager, Maximiliano Alcorta, highlighted that “there is a very important commercial exchange with Asia for the country and from MSC we want to offer more connection alternatives. We welcome this service at STI along with the start of the cherry export season, a time when national exporters require the full strength of our industry to ship their fruit to China.”
This year the cherry season starts one week earlier than last year and will be longer, given that in 2026 the Chinese New Year will be celebrated from February 17 to March 3, which means more opportunities for national production.
The MSC Lome V, a vessel with a length of 264 meters, corresponds to the first vessel of the Alpaca service, one of the 4 services that STI will host during this season for the export of cherries via the cherry express vessels.
