Osaka Shosen Kaisha

Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd.
株式会社商船三井

Type	Public K.K.
Traded as	:
Industry	Transport
Founded	1884
Headquarters	Toranomon, Minato, Tokyo.
Number of employees	9,626
Website	Homepage

MOL (Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd.) (Kabushiki-gaisha Shōsen Mitsui) is a Japanese transport company headquartered in Toranomon, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The company's main area of operations is international shipping. Its alligator logo can be seen on containers in ports around the world.

Founded as a key part of the Mitsui zaibatsu (family-owned conglomerate) during the early industrialization of Japan, the company is now independent of the zaibatsu, but remains part of the Mitsui keiretsu (group of aligned companies).

Many heads of this company have wielded considerable power in Japan and abroad. One of the latest is Masaharu Ikuta, who has been appointed to head the newly privatized Japan Post.

MOL (Mitsui O.S.K. Lines) was founded in 1964, following the merger of Osaka Shosen Kaisha (OSK) (大阪商船株式会社, Osaka Shōsen Kabushiki-gaisha) and Mitsui Steamship Co., Ltd., formerly 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 1,237 thousand tonnes deadweight (DWT).

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 15,400 gross register tons (GRT).