The ‘Neptune Pearl’ was the first purpose-built containership commissioned by the Neptune Orient Lines (NOL) shipping company for its fleet. The vessel was constructed in Japan by Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries and delivered to NOL in 1976. The 32,000-tonne, $80-million vessel was capable of carrying up to 1,569 twenty-foot equivalent units of containers and had a service speed of 23 knots. The vessel called at the Port of Singapore in November 1976 as part of her Far East-Europe maiden voyage. In 1993, the vessel was re-assigned to ply NOL’s new shipping route between Colombo, Sri Lanka, and the east coast of the United States.NOL was established in December 1978 to serve as Singapore’s national shipping line. The company started with a fleet of five vessels and started to turn a profit by 1972 under the administration of then managing director Goh Chok Tong. In 1976, NOL expanded into the Asia-Europe shipping trade through the ACE liner consortium and launched a trans-Pacific service two years later. The company went public in 1981 and diversified into the lightering business in the early 1990s by running its own fleet of oil and petroleum product tankers. Another major milestone was reached in 1997 when the company acquired the American President Lines (APL) shipping company – a deal which made NOL one of the top five global liner groups. NOL remains one of the world’s major shipping lines with Temasek Holdings, the Singapore government’s investment arm, holding a majority stake in it.
