The 2M Alliance, comprising Maersk Line and MSC, has confirmed that the Port of Liverpool will become a permanent call on its TA4 service connecting Europe with several U.S ports. The move follows the introduction of a temporary call in July 2018 resulting from continued disruption at the Port of Felixstowe. The service will use a port rotation that takes in Antwerp, Rotterdam, Bremerhaven, Liverpool, Newark, Savannah, Port Everglades and North Charleston.
APL announced on 16th January that it is adding Guayaquil and Ensenada as ports of call to the Condor Express (CDX) service. The refined CDX service is characterised by its competitive transit time. Transit time from Guayaquil to Yokohama is 26 days, the fastest in the market. Cargo from Ensenada to Yokohama, Busan and China now takes 13, 16 and 21 days respectively. The improved CDX service commenced from Kaohsiung on 23rd January with the following port rotation: Kaohsiung-Hong Kong-Shekou-Ningbo-Shanghai-Busan-Manzanillo, MX-Lazaro Cardenas-Buenaventura-Callao-Guayaquil-Lazaro Cardenas-Manzanillo-MX-Ensenada-Yokohama-Busan-Kaohsiung. Five days later APL announced the launch of a new weekly service, the China Malaysia Service (CMS) to connect North, Central and South China to the niche ports of Port Klang, Penang and Pasir Gudang in Malaysia. The CMS commenced from Qingdao on 23rd February serving Qingdao, Shanghai, Xiamen, Nansha, Port Klang, Penang, Port Klang, Pasir Gudang, Shekou and Hong Kong. As part of the CMA CGM Group, APL will offer a total of 34 service loops in the OCEAN Alliance Day 3 Product from 1st April 2019 as follows: Asia-North America: 15 OCEAN Alliance services and 8 non-OCEAN Alliance services; Asia-Europe: 7 OCEAN Alliance services and 2 non-OCEAN Alliance services; Asia-Mediterranean: 4 OCEAN Alliance services and 1 non-OCEAN Alliance service; Trans-Atlantic: 2 OCEAN Alliance services and 3 non-OCEAN Alliance services: Asia-Middle East: 4 OCEAN Alliance services and 1 non-OCEAN Alliance service: Asia-Red Sea: 2 OCEAN Alliance services: Intra-Asia: 47 non-OCEAN Alliance services and Latin America: 21 non-OCEAN Alliance services.
CMA CGM announced in January that the PAD service linking North Europe with USEC, French Pacific islands, Australia and New Zealand would resume with a weekly frequency from mid-February.
The first sailing from Le Havre was handled by the 26,582gt/2001 built EM Corfu on 23rd February and likewise from Tauranga, New Zealand, on 16th April. The port rotation is as follows: Zeebrugge-London Gateway-Rotterdam-Dunkirk-Le Havre-New York-Savannah-Cartagena-Papeete-Noumea-Brisbane-Sydney-Melbourne-Nelson-Tauranga-Manzanillo-Savannah-Philadelphia-Zeebrugge. The service will be operated with 13 vessels of 2,500 TEU nominal capacity, with 600 reefer plugs. CMA CGM is deploying 12 of the vessels and the port of Napier will be offered via an Oceania feeder service. On 16th January CMA CGM unveiled its new unrivalled service, the Ocean Alliance Day 3 Product in partnership with COSCO Shipping, Evergreen and OOCL, that will commence in April. The new agreement will employ around 330 container ships, 111 of which will be operated by the CMA CGM Group, which handles 38 of the Ocean Alliance services, with an approximate carrying capacity of 3.8 million TEUs. The following day CMA CGM revealed that an updated rotation was to be implemented on the ACSA 1 service linking the Far East to the West Coast of South America. The revised rotation is: Yokohama-Pusan-Kaohsiung-Hong Kong-Shekou-Ningbo-Shanghai-Pusan-Manzanillo, Mx-Lazaro Cardenas-Buenaventura-Callao-Guayaquil-Lazaro Cardenas-Manzanillo, Mx-Ensenada. The first eastbound sailing was operated by the 95,256gt/2018 built CMA CGM Estelle from Kaohsiung on 23rd January and likewise from Buenaventura on 26th February.
By Andrew Cooke / Shipping Today and Yesterday
