China United Lines (CUL) will suspend its Transpacific Express II/South China-West US (TPC) service connecting Nansha, Yantian, Los Angeles, Nansha from June 2023 The TPC service is currently operated with 5 ships of 1,700-2,500 teu, and is currently the smallest service on the transpacific trade. It follows the earlier departure of micro carriers from the transpacific trade including CIMC, Jinjiang Shipping, BAL, TS Lines, Transfar, SeaLead and Pasha. The only remaining micro carrier on the Fa
Swire Shipping will upgrade its participation on the US West Coast to Pacific Islands service by taking over Hamburg Sud's share of the joint service from June 2023. The geared 1,730 teu MOUNT CAMERON will make the first independent voyage for Swire from 16 June 2023 at Long Beach. The US West Coast to Pacific Islands service connects Long Beach, Oakland, Papeete, Apia, Pago Pago, Long Beach on a 35-40 day rotation using 2 ships, with sailings every 19 days with relay connections at Apia by tr
The number of containerships currently undergoing scrubber and LNG retrofits stand at 15 units for 122,150 teu with 6 units below 5,100 teu class. The retrofit fleet is currently at the lowest level since March 2022 and continue to fall with the bulk of the retrofit candidates already completed. Pasha’s HORIZON RELIANCE (to be renamed GEORGE II) is nearing completion of its LNG engine retrofit in China. The 43 year old US flagged ship has been docked since August 2022.
CMA CGM will launch a new Turkey Libya Express (TLX) service connecting Asia with the Red Sea, Turkey and Libya. The new weekly service will start on 1 July 2023 with the 2,468 teu BUXLINK and will deploy 9 ships of 2,500-4,400 teu. The service will call at Shanghai, Ningbo, Nansha, Singapore, Jeddah, Iskenderun, Malta, Misurata, Jeddah, Port Klang, Shanghai.
HMM has added a new call at Jakarta on the Far East-India-Latin America (FIL) service to provide a direct link between Indonesia and Latin America. The enhanced FIL service will call at Busan, Shanghai, Ningbo, Shekou, Jakarta, Singapore, Kattupalli, Santos, Paranagua, Itapoa, Itajai, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Santos, Singapore, Hong Kong, Busan. The first call at Jakarta was made on 8 June 2023 with the 6.765 teu HYUNDAI SHANGHAI. 12 ships of 4,700-6,800 teu are deployed on the service that i
TS Lines has introduced a new North Vietnam 2 (NV2) service in a partnership with Maersk/Sealand Asia. The service calls at Ningbo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Haiphong, Hong Kong, Ningbo using 2 ships of 1,000 teu. TS Lines's chartered 987 teu ORTOLAN EPSILON made its maiden call at Ningbo on 30 May 2023 for one voyage, joining Maersk's 1,049 teu ASIATIC SUN on the service. TS Line will replace the ship with the TS HAIPHONG and TS KOBE subsequently in June.
Charter rates continue to diverge, remaining firm for the larger ships in the Panamax and larger segments while softening in the smaller sizes of below 3,000 teu. Demand in the larger sizes have been surprisingly resilient despite the ongoing weakness in the freight markets. All prompt vessels of 5,000 teu and above have been snatched up, with the tight supply to persist until the end of the year. But the supply-demand balance for smaller ships have started to weaken, with a significant number
Shanghai reported total container volumes of 4.10m teu in May, for its strongest monthly performance so far this year. Although the May volumes were 20.5% higher than the corresponding period last year, the large increase was due to the 2-month COVID-19 lockdown in April and May 2022 which dragged down Shanghai’s volumes last year. YTD volume growth for the first 5 months of the year reached 4.4% but volumes remain well below the 2022 monthly peak of 4.35m teu. In the India subcontinent, Nhava
Safetrans, OVP Shipping and Mountan Air Shipping have launched two new feeder services to provide relay connections for their joint service from China to connect to the Russan market through the Baltic and Black Sea gateways of St Petersburg and Novorossiysk. The Med-Baltic Feeder will connect Ambarli and St Petersburg and currently deploys 3 ships from OVP - OVP ARIES (2,464 teu), ALLSEAS PIONEER (1,878 teu), HUA XIANG 936 (1,675 teu). 2 more ships will be added in July 2023 with the frequency
Spliethoff has launched a new Transatlantic container/roro service starting from June 2023. The service will operate on a monthly frequency and call at Antwerp, Bristol or Southampton, Baltimore, Gloucester using roro ships from sister company Transfennica that are normally operated on the intra-European routes. These ships are able to carry 300-600 teu of containers and up to 3,000 lane meters of rolling cargo. The first sailing was made from Antwerp on 9 June with the 640 teu/2,953 lane m PUL