All of the containership services that were diverted from the Panama Canal since November 2023 have returned to their regular Panama transits as of May 2024. These services were forced to switch to the longer route initially through the Suez Canal and then to the Cape of Good Hope after the Red Sea crisis escalated at the end of 2023. With the increase in the number of neo-panamax transit slots at the Panama Canal from May, carriers are bringing back all of these services to Panama which would
Maersk will split its Oceania-US East Coast OC1 service into 2 different loops covering the Atlantic and Pacific sectors separately. The OC1 Pacific loop will call at Balboa, Tauranga, Sydney, Melbourne, Port Chalmers, Tauranga, Balboa with cargo heading to and from North America transferred to the Panama Canal Railway landbridge for connection on the OC1 Atlantic loop that will call at Manzanillo, Philadelphia, Charleston, Manzanillo. The intermediate call at Cartagena in Colombo will be dro
The missile attack on NUMBER 9, an OOCL operated ship on 3 December has broadened the threat to all ships passing through the Red Sea, even those that have no links to Israel. Zim has already diverted its ships from the Suez to the longer Cape of Good Hope, while Maersk has also diverted 2 ships chartered from Israeli interests following the attack on the CMA CGM SYMI on 25 November. Among 3 ships attacked in Red Sea the past Sunday (3 Dec), the 4,253 teu NUMBER 9 that was targeted by the miss
The Panama Canal transit restrictions have started to impact containerships for the first time, with a rising number of ships facing delays that are set to worsen over the next 2 months. The limits on vessel transits that have been implemented since 1 November will see the daily transit limit cut from 32 to 18 for all kind of vessels by February next year, with transits for neo-panamax to be limited to 5 daily or 35 weekly. Containerships currently account for 29 weekly neo-panamax transits
Total containership capacity waiting at anchorages edged up slightly at the end of last week to 1.61m teu or 5.8% of the global fleet with a slight build up of ships in China with the start of the Golden Week holidays. The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) has reduced the number of vessel passage from 32 per day currently to 31 from 1 November 2023. The current restriction are already reduced from the normal limit of 36 transits per day have been imposed since 30 July 2023. These restrictions have n
Maersk has added additional sailings between China/Korea and the US East Coast on its extra loader program for overflow cargo, retaining the routing via the Panama Canal despite ongoing draft restrictions and congestion. Maersk has deployed 8 extra sailings to the US East Coast since the beginning of July 2023 using ships of 3,000-7,000 teu, of which 6 sailings took the Panama route without encountering any significant delays, while 2 sailings were routed via the Suez Canal. * GSL ELEFTHERIA