Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (; abbreviated MOL) is a Japanese transport company headquartered in Toranomon, Minato, Tokyo, Japan."Corporate Profile ." Mitsui O.S.K. Lines. Retrieved on 21 June 2010. It is one of the largest shipping companies in the world and the largest tanker owning and operating company in the world.
Founded as a key part of the Mitsui zaibatsu (family-owned conglomerate) during the early industrialization of Japan, the company remains part of the Mitsui keiretsu (group of aligned companies) after the dissolution of the zaibatsu in the post-war period.
MOL fleet includes dry cargo ships (bulk carriers), liquefied natural gas carriers, Ro-Ro Car Carrier ships, oil tankers, container ships (among which mv MOL Triumph is the 4th largest containership in the world), and container terminals. The company's container shipping operations were merged with those of NYK Line and K Line and rebranded as Ocean Network Express in April 2018, with MOL holding a 31% stake in the joint venture.
MOL is also active in passenger shipping. operates cruise ships such as the and MS Mitsui Ocean Fuji, with three more large vessels expected to join the fleet by the end of the 2020s. MOL's subsidiary, , operates daily domestic ferry routes between Greater Tokyo and Hokkaido, as well as between Kansai and Kyushu.
History MOL (Mitsui O.S.K. Lines) was launched in 1964, following the merger of created in 1878, and Mitsui Steamship Co., Ltd. founded in 1942, formerly known as Mitsui Line, under the Law Concerning the Reconstruction and Reorganization of the Shipping Industry. At that time the company was the largest shipping company in Japan, capitalized at ¥13.1 billion, with 83 vessels aggregating .
1884–1950
OSK OSK was founded in 1884, when 55 ship owners, each of whom had only a small number of vessels, combined their operations. The chief representative of these ship owners was Hirose Saihei, senior manager of the Sumitomo zaibatsu, or conglomerate, and a prominent figure in Osaka financial circles. OSK was capitalized at ¥1.2 million, with 93 vessels totalling .
In the first few years its routes were limited to coastal services in the western area of Japan. In 1890, OSK inaugurated an Osaka-Pusan run followed in 1893 by the operation of an Osaka-Incheon route and Korean coastal services. The company was recapitalized at ¥1.8 million in 1893, rising to ¥2.5 million in 1894, to ¥5 million in 1896, when the government of Taiwan granted OSK subsidies for Osaka-Taiwan liner services, and to ¥10 million in 1898 when the company started to operate on the Yangtze River.
In 1898, Tokugoro Nakahashi became the company's third president. He made a great effort to rationalize the internal organization of OSK, to penetrate the Chinese market, and also to inaugurate the first OSK ocean route, a Hong Kong to Tacoma, Washington service, in 1908. In 1911 OSK started a Kobe to Bombay service. The route was under the monopoly of the Far Eastern Freight Conference (FEFC) of which Nippon Yusen K.K. (NYK) was the only Japanese member. OSK fought against the FEFC and was admitted to the conference in 1913. In 1918, the company opened a Bombay to Marseille route and was admitted to full membership of the FEFC. Meanwhile, it opened a San Francisco route, an Australia route, and a South America route, offering a worldwide liner service. It began a New York City service in 1920 but operated at a deficit. In 1930 OSK made a huge investment in five new high-speed motor ships in order to start a New York express service. This service entirely transformed raw-silk transportation from Asia to America; raw silk began to be carried by water all the way to New York instead of going by land. OSK's share of cargo shipped on this route grew, and its business performance improved in spite of unfavourable business conditions.
During the Great Depression, OSK and NYK made a cooperative agreement in 1931 whereby OSK abolished its Puget Sound route, which had called at Tacoma and Seattle, and in turn acquired a monopoly on the South American east coast route. OSK quickly recovered from the deficits of 1930 and 1931, and resumed paying dividends in 1932.
The company's profits peaked in 1941, when OSK was capitalized at ¥87 million and had 112 vessels aggregating .
Mitsui Bussan Kaisha The Mitsui Line was originally the shipping department of the trading company Mitsui Bussan Kaisha. Mitsui Bussan was established in 1876 and obtained exclusive rights to export and market the coal extracted at the state-run Miike mine. It chartered boats and transported coal on its own account. In 1878 it bought a steamship, and in 1888 it bought the mines. Mitsui Bussan became an industrial carrier and the shipping section was established in 1898. The section expanded to become the Shipping Department and moved to Kobe in 1904. The company then owned 9 ships aggregating , and on the eve of World War I the fleet totalled 15 ships with , increasing to 30 ships totalling in 1919. The third general manager, Teijiro Kawamura, expanded the business of the department during World War I; in 1914 it began a tramp service carrying the company's own cargo and that of other companies. In 1917 it constructed a shipyard and set up the shipbuilding department and in 1920 it opened a semi-liner service from Dalian via Kobe to Seattle, whereby a liner service operated on outbound voyages but on the return voyage, owing to insufficient cargo at Seattle, ships had to stop and collect cargo at other ports.
Mitsui Bussan's Shipping Department built two sister ships in 1924. One was equipped with reciprocal oil-burners, the other had diesel engines and was the first ocean-going diesel ship in Japan. The department put these ships on the North American route and compared their performance. Akagisan Maru, the diesel ship, proved superior, and Mitsui concluded a manufacturing and marketing license agreement with Burmeister and Wain Co. (B & W), who had manufactured the engine, in 1926. In 1928 Mitsui opened a Bangkok route, in 1931 a Philippines route, in 1932 a Dalien to New York route, and in 1935 a Persian Gulf route. From 1933 the Shipping Department became known as Mitsui Line. In 1937 it owned 35 ships aggregating . The shipbuilding department was separated off as the Mitsui Tama Shipyard in 1937, and in 1942 the former Shipping Department too became a separate company, Mitsui Steamship Co., Ltd. (MS). It was capitalized at ¥50 million, and Takaharu Mitsui was elected chairman.
World War II During World War II OSK, like other Japanese shipping companies, was forced to be a mere ship owner. When the war ended it had only 55 vessels left, totalling , most of which were so-called wartime standard ships, of poor quality. All ships were under control of the Allied powers through the Civilian Merchant Marine Committee. In 1950, however, OSK returned to global service. By the end of 1957 the company had almost recovered the sailing rights it had been given by the FEFC before the war, and was making 18 voyages per month on 13 overseas liner routes. Competition was far more intense than before the war, as anyone who had money could construct ships under the government-sponsored shipbuilding program, started in 1947. Before the war, conference members had sought to exclude newcomers. OSK constructed 38 ships under the program. In 1953 OSK established an eastbound route to South America to transport emigrants from Japan. At first the service was profitable, but the number of emigrants fell to below 2,000 per year in 1962. In 1963 OSK established the Japan Emigration Ship Co., Ltd. (JES) to hive off this loss making business. Later, JES was reorganized into Mitsui OSK Passenger Co., Ltd. In this period most of OSK's businesses were loss making. In 1964 it owned 41 vessels totalling . The company was capitalized at ¥7.6 billion and its debts totalled approximately ¥34.9 billion.
1950–1964 During World War II, and after the war, all MS ships were under the control of the government. When Japan lost the war in 1945, only 17 of MS's vessels were left, increasing to 22 vessels totalling when MS re-acquired operations that had previously been chartered out to the Civilian Merchant Marine Committee (CMMC).
Post-war MS then began a vigorous expansion of its fleet and routes to re-establish its pre-war network, and went so far as to apply to the FEFC. When its application was rejected, MS placed outsider—non-conference-member—ships on this route in 1953. After a long struggle, the conference attempted to resolve the issue politically and the British ambassador openly criticized Japan's shipping policies in 1955. Japan joined the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) the same year, and Japan's minister of transport was anxious to settle the issue without dispute. The final proposal of the conference, through the mediation of the minister of transport, contained extremely harsh conditions which MS had to accept, one of which was that MS could only join the FEFC if it operated under the management of NYK for several years. The 39-month battle was over, and MS began placing ships under the auspice of NYK in 1956. Five years later, MS at last joined the conference.
Shipbuilding MS constructed 38 vessels between 1950 and its merger with OSK in 1964, and its operating tonnage was the largest in Japan. One of its ships, Kinkasan Maru, was the first bridge-controlled ship in the world. MS planned to rationalize its crews and at the same time improve the working conditions of engineers. It cooperated with Mitsui Shipbuilding & Engineering Co., a direct successor of Mitsui Tama Shipyard, and designed innovatory bridge-controlled ships. The Kinkasan Maru was delivered in 1961 and MS placed it, along with another bridge-controlled ship, on the New York route, which was re-opened in 1951. Besides the New York route, MS operated westbound and eastbound routes around the world, a Central and South America route, a West Africa route, and a Great Lakes route. In 1964 MS owned 45 vessels aggregating . However, MS's performance was disappointing from 1950 until the OSK merger in 1964, when it was capitalized at ¥5.5 billion and had debts of ¥26.7 billion.
Mitsui-OSK merger
Soon after the shipping industry reorganization of 1964, in which Japanese shipping companies were restructured into six groups, world shipping moved toward containerization. Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd. (MOL), formed by the merger of OSK and MS, began container services on the California route, joining a space-charter consortium of four Japanese operators.
Business results improved after the merger, and the loss brought forward was written off in 1966. The company was recapitalized at ¥20 billion in 1968, and at ¥30 billion in 1972. The owned fleet increased to 152 vessels, totalling in 1974, and the operating fleet—owned vessels and time-chartered vessels—numbered 291 vessels, totalling .
Containerization The first container ship, MOL's America Maru, sailed from Kobe to San Francisco in October 1969. Containerization spread to other routes, including the Australia route, with NYK and Yamashita-Shinnihon Steamship Co., in 1970; the North Pacific route, with five other Japanese companies, in 1971; and the Europe route, as part of the TRIO Group consisting of MOL, Nippon Yusen Kaisha, Overseas Container Line, Ben Line, and Hapag-Lloyd, in 1971. On the New York route and Mediterranean routes a container service began in 1972. In June 2013, one of its container ship, MOL Comfort, broke in two and sank off Yemen. The bow section caught fire before sinking. All 26 crew reported rescued by three other container ships that diverted to her, Hapag-Lloyd's Yantian Express, Hanjin Beijing of now defunct Hanjin Shipping and ZIM's ZIM India. The crews of three ships found them in two raft and one lifeboat.
Carrying ore