CMA CGM and Maersk will launch a new jointly operated Asia-East Coast South America service branded respectively as the the SEAS 3 and ASAS2 calling at Shanghai, Shekou, Cai Mep, Singapore, Santos, Singapore, Shanghai from 8 April 2025. The SEAS 3/ASAS2 service will turn in 11 weeks and will deploy 11 ships of 5,000 teu to 8,000 teu, with CMA CGM operating 7 ships and Maersk operating 4 ships. The service will connect at Santos for relay to other East Coast Latin American ports and will also pr
Register Free Trial Carriers are finally taking action to curb capacity increases in their bid to reverse the recent freight rate slide, with MSC confirming the withdrawal of the transpacific Mustang service while also redeploying its largest 24,000 teu ships from the Asia-North Europe to the Med and West Africa routes. The OCEAN Alliance has also delayed plans to launch a new Asia-North Europe string in March, with Premier Alliance also expected to postpone the launch of 2 Transpacific strings
Hapag-Lloyd will launch a new Portugal Tangier Express (PTX) service connecting Tangier, Lisbon, Vigo, Leixoes, Tangier from 17 March 2025 with the 1,440 teu GFS SAPPHIRE on a weekly rotation that will provide connections between Iberian ports as well as transshipment options at Tangier to Hapag-Lloyd’s global network.
MSC will suspend one of the 5 Asia to North America West Coast services that it planned to launch in 2025, reducing its Transpacific coverage to only 4 sailings per week. The withdrawal of the Mustang service that was to connect Xiamen, Yantian, Ningbo, Shanghai, Busan, Seattle, Vancouver, Portland, Busan, Xiamen would remove about 12,000 teu weekly from the FE-WCNA route and would release 7 ships that MSC said would be redeployed to other trades. The Mustang service had been operated in its pr
X-Press Feeders have relaunched its Intra Adriatic X-Press (IAX) service with a revised rotation calling at Trieste, Ancona, Ravenna, Trieste. The new IAX will turn in 7 days using the 698 teu SUNAID X at Ancona on 12 March 2025 (after the initial call at Trieste on 9 March 2025 was omitted).
SeaLead will launch a new Far East-India Express 3 (FIX3) service connecting Shanghai, Ningbo, Nansha, Nhava Sheva, Shanghai. The FIX3 will turn in 6 weeks and will deploy up to 6 ships of 2,500-4,600 teu starting with the 4,628 teu ZHONG GU YIN CHUAN at Shanghai on 7 March 2025.
The EC contracts gapped down at the open but recovered throughout the day, with longer-dated contracts even closing in positive territory as traders believed MSC Lion's capacity reduction signaled discipline from the liners. However, Lion's capacity adjustment had already been reflected in the sailing schedule ten days prior, and our latest Deployment Watch (based on 22 Feb schedule data) suggests weekly capacity in March would still amount to 288k per week with smaller ships for the Lion servic
Wild swing for the main EC contract, EC2504, this morning going from being 3.8% up in first 30m minutes at market open to down 3.8% before recovering by lunch break. Overnight, CMA CGM dropped its online quotation to below $3,000 per FEU for all March shipments. Maersk released $2300 per FEU after lunch break that put the EC2504 decidedly in the negative territory for the day.
Congestion edged up slightly in the past week, with European port congestion remaining very severe. All North Europe main ports have reported very high yard utilization, which has been exacerbated by labour disputes in Rotterdam and Le Havre. Vessel waiting times remained elevated at up to 5 days with congestion most serious in Rotterdam, Antwerp, Southampton and Hamburg which are affecting mother vessel and feeder schedules. Some terminals have applied emergency measures to cease cargo acceptan
The USTR has proposed punitive levies for ships calling at US ports on Chinese shipping companies as well as other companies operating Chinese built ships of up to $1.5m per vessel call at US ports, with an additional charge of up to $1m per call for companies with ships on order at Chinese shipyards. The proposed trade action would hit COSCO especially hard, while Taiwanese and Korean carriers would benefit from the move as only a small proportion of their fleet are Chinese built, allowing for