HMM, ONE and Yang Ming will launch a new India subcontinent-North Europe service connecting Karachi, Hazira, Mundra, Nhava Sheva, Colombo, London Gateway, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Antwerp, Karachi from 5 February 2025. The service will be branded as the India North Europe Express (INX) by HMM, Indian Ocean Express (IOX) by ONE and India Ocean Express Service (ISE) by Yang Ming. It willturn in 11 weeks using 11 ships of 6,000 to 7,000 teu. Port rotation of the new INX/IOX/ISE service

ONE and Unifeeder will launch a new Baltic Bridge Express (BBX) service calling at Rotterdam, Klaipeda, Riga, Talinn, Kotka, Rotterdam from 24 January 2025. The BBX service will turn in 14 days with the 1,436 teu ESSENCE from ONE and the 1,025 teu ELBSKY from Unifeeder. Port rotation of the new BBX service

CMA CGM and its intra-Asia arm CNC has introduced a new China Vietnam Express 8 (CV8) service calling at Shanghai, Ningbo, Ho Chi Minh City, Shanghai from 28 December 2024. The CV8 service turns in 14 days and deploys the 2,058 teu CMA CGM ESCURIAL and 1,756 teu KUO LIN.

ONE will join the OCEAN Alliance carriers - CMA CGM, COSCO/OOCL and Evergreen - to operate 3 transatlantic services connecting North Europe to US East Coast and Gulf Coast from February 2024. The 4 partners will jointly operate the following services: * North Atlantic (NATL) service connecting Southampton, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Bremerhaven, Le Havre, New York, Norfolk, Baltimore, Southampton using 6 ships of 10,600 teu (3 from COSCO/OOCL, 2 from CMA CGM and 1 from Evergreen) and brande

EC2502 continued to move in a narrow range while longer-dated contracts declined. All three ships that left the Far East yesterday (17 Dec) reported very high utilization. Among them, MSC ALEXANDRA from MSC's Britannia service achieved 104% utilization, compared to only 94% in its last westbound voyage in July. Liners appear tentative about pushing for further freight rate increases, with Maersk and MSC setting the tone. Maersk has yet to publish its quotation for January, while MSC is quoting

ONE will partner HMM and CMA CGM to launch a new North Europe-US West Coast Transatlantic service that are named respectively as the Atlantic 5 (AL5), Transatlantic 1 (TA1) and California Bridge (CALFB). Yang Ming, OOCL and COSCO will also participate as slot buyers on the service as the Atlantic 5 (AL5) and Atlantic West Coast (ATW). The AL5/TA1/CALFB/ATW will call at Southampton, Le Havre, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Antwerp, Miami, Cartagena (Col), Panama Canal, Balboa, Los Angeles, Oakland, Balboa,

EC futures barely moved on thin volume today, despite a 12% jump in SCFIS overnight. Hapag-Lloyd lowered its January shipment quotations from $6,000-$8,000 per FEU to below $6,000 per FEU, while Maersk has yet to post any quotes for January shipments. Although the industry average utilization for the FE-NEUR route has rebounded to mid-November highs, THE Alliance sailings have shown relatively weak utilization in recent weeks, reflecting the price Hapag-Lloyd has paid for its leadership in raisi

Charter activity is slowing down as the end of 2024 approaches with no signs of charter rates abating after their strong run up over the past 12 months. Activity is focused entirely on the smaller sizes of below 5,000 teu with no fresh deals in the over-5,000 teu segment due to the acute shortage of open tonnage with increasing numbers of forward fixtures done for 2nd half 2025 deliveries. Activity in the smaller sizes remain brisk, with the 1,700 teu/2,700 teu/4,200 teu segments still registe

Port congestion eased slightly last week with improvements coming mainly from Chinese ports while there was little change in the situation in Europe and North America. In China, the congestion is mainly concentrated in Shanghai and Ningbo which continues to see elevated vessel calls and container volumes with waiting times of up to 2 days. European port congestion also remains high with Hamburg, Rotterdam, Antwerp and London Gateway experiencing very high yard occupancy rates that has caused ber

Asia-North Europe carriers failed in their bid to raise freight rates in mid-December with spot rates rolling back some of their earlier gains with the SCFI slipping by 2.2% last week. However, the SCFIS jumped by a larger than expected 14.0% on 16 December, reflecting the delayed effects of the early December rate hikes. Most carriers are holding their rates until the end of the year, before making another attempt to raise rates to $6,000/feu on 1 January. Maersk continues to offer selective d

EC contracts mostly lost ground over the past week with the longer dated EC futures after February 2025 registering drops over between 1% to 5%. In contrast, near-term contracts were firm with December 2024 and February 2025 contracts gaining some ground as carriers managed to hold on to the 1 December rate increases. The SCFIS released after the market close on 16 December 16 jumped by 14% week-over-week and 22% over the past two weeks, outperforming market expectations bringing the index to wi

Both the CCFI and SCFI rebounded last week with carriers successfully reversing the recent slide in freight rates with Asia-Europe rates still holding on to most of their recent gains while Transpacific rates are staging a late rally amidst growing USEC port labor tensions and the threat of rising trade tariffs. Average CCFI rates in the 4th quarter is holding just above the 2nd quarter levels which will ensure that carriers’ earnings will remain healthy in the last quarter of 2024 with carrie