The 11,388 teu CMA CGM COLUMBA is scheduled to make an eastbound Suez transit on 23 January 2025 after having passed through Suez on 6 December 2024 on its westbound voyage for the Europe Pakistan India Consortium (EPIC) service that CMA CGM jointly operates with COSCO and OOCL. A CMA CGM spokesperson said that the 2 Suez voyages were ad hoc sailings and the company is closely monitoring the ongoing developments. The EPIC service has been re-routed to the Cape route since 2024 and currently ope
RCL has added a new RCL North China Straits India (RNI6) service by joining Wan Hai and Interasia Lines (IAL) on their existing China-India 2 (CI2) / Interasia China-India (ICI) service that calls at Qingdao, Shanghai, Ningbo, Nansha, Port Klang(WP), Port Klang(NP), Nhava Sheva, Cochin, Port Klang(NP), Qingdao. RCL will add the 5,888 teu AKA BHUM to the service which turns in 42 days using 6 ships of 4,200 to 5,900 teu.
HMM and ONE will launch a new Far East-East Coast South America service from April 2025 to connect Busan, Chiwan, Singapore, Rio Grande, Santos, Santa Catarina, Singapore, Hong Kong, Busan. The service will be branded as the Far East-Latin America 2 (FL2) by HMM and East Coast South America Express 2 (SX2) by ONE. In conjunction to the launch, the 2 partners will also offer a new dedicated River Plate feeder service to connect Rio Grande with Buenos Aires and Montevideo to cater for Argentina a
Amu Shipping has launched a new feeder service connecting Mogadishu, Mombasa, Kismayo, Mogadishu from 13 January 2025 using the newly acquired geared 1,083 teu AMU JAMEEL (ex BOSTON TRADER build 2002) that has just completed its positioning trip from China carrying cargo from Qingdao, Ningbo and Nansha to Kenya and Somalia.
The EC experienced a sell-off this morning following the ceasefire deal in Gaza. While it remains uncertain when the liners will return to the Suez/Red Sea, most EC contracts are already trading at levels not seen since mid-December 2023. There has been no new utilization data since yesterday, and the liner's FAK online quotations have decreased.
EC contracts continued to decline as traders anticipated a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas before the end of March. The near-term fundamentals in the physical market are also weak, as the pre-Lunar New Year cargo rush has been insufficient to counter the highest capacity deployment on the Far East to North Europe route in two years, resulting in falling head haul vessel utilization. Liners have continued to slash their online quotations. Traders expressed their bearish outlook, primari
OOIL's fourth-quarter report and the December revenue reports from Taiwanese liners indicate that many liners could experience a quarter-over-quarter revenue drop of between 18% and 25%, potentially resulting in earnings declines of up to 50%. COSCO’s full year profit alert shows a 50% qoq drop in earnings in the 4th quarter.
Longer-dated container freight futures contracts for April to December 2025 fell by 5-12% week-over-week, with the futures market in steep backwardation as freight rates are expected to drop by 55 to 65% below current spot rates for most of 2025. The SCFIS recorded its second successive decline this year, dropping by a further 3.8% after last week’s 3.6% fall. The resolution of the ILA contract negotiations on the US East Coast removed the only potential catalyst for a freight rate rally, with
Asia-North Europe SCFI rates slipped by 14.5% last week, effectively erasing all the gains that carriers have secured in December. Although capacity utilization remains strong, the average capacity on the North Europe route in January remains at a 2 year high as carriers try to hold their volumes ahead of the new alliance reshuffle next month. The OCEAN Alliance’s launch of the new Loop 3 service from April will add up to 5% to overall FE-North Europe capacity, setting the stage for a fresh rou
Port congestion eased slightly last week but remains highly elevated with 8.5% of the global containership fleet waiting at anchorages at the end of last week. The main improvements were seen in Chinese ports but berthing delays persist at the main ports of Shanghai, Ningbo and Qingdao where high cargo volumes and bunching of vessel arrivals continue to keep ports fully occupied in the busy period before the Chinese New Year. European port congestion continues to be elevated with significant de