Container lines

The European Shippers Council attacked the proposed 2M vessel-sharing agreement in a letter sent last week to the Federal Maritime Commission but is unlikely to convince the U.S. regulatory agency to reject the agreement involving the world’s two largest container lines.

U.S. containerized trade increased 2.6 percent year-over-year in the first half of 2014, with just three carriers — Maersk Line, Mediterranean Shipping Co. and Evergreen Line — accounting for 28.4 percent of all trade.

The savings to be gained from a container line getting more miles to the gallon are immense, as Singapore's NOL Group can attest with $1.2 billion in cuts, and half of that came from bunker and network savings at its APL liner division.

Spot freight rates on the key Asia-north Europe trade are reported to have slumped to just $750 per 20-foot container, down more than $1,000 since the beginning of the year.

China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection is considering new regulations that would put provincial authorities in charge of approving wastepaper imports that the ministry now regulates.

The percent of import containers arriving at the Los Angeles-Long Beach gateway that were transloaded into domestic containers for onward rail transport into the interior U.S. continued to increase last year and is forecast to continue rising in 2014.

Westbound trans-Pacific carriers expect container availability to increase in the next three weeks at most key U.S. intermodal hubs, according to a weekly U.S. Department of Agriculture survey.

India and China signed 16 memorandums of understanding, including a five-year trade and economic cooperation plan, in a major attempt to address the growing trade imbalance between the two countries.

DFDS, one of Europe’s largest short sea-shipping and logistics operators, this week announced plans to close a second route in response to tougher environmental regulations that will sharply increase the cost of ships’ fuel from 2015.

Maersk Line CEO Soren Skou on Friday discussed the proposed “2M’ vessel-sharing agreement with China’s Ministry of Commerce, as the carrier works to avoid a repeat of the rejection that it received from Chinese regulators for its proposed P3 alliance in June.

Global Ship Lease has agreed to acquire an 8,063-TEU container ship from a “leading” though unnamed container line for $55 million, according to the container ship charter company.

With the number of laid-up container ships hovering close to three-year lows, vessel owners may enjoy a short-term boost in charter rates this fall, industry analyst firm Alphaliner reports in its latest newsletter.

Japan’s trade surplus with the United States shrank sharply in August, as exports to the U.S. declined while imports surged at a double-digit pace, according to preliminary trade figures released Thursday by Japan’s Finance Ministry.

The emergence of four large alliances among the world's largest container shipping lines is creating a two-tier market that could doom smaller carriers to hanging on to niche trades or going out of business.

Maersk Line and Mediterranean Shipping Co. today released the 2M Alliance’s tentative 2015 east-west network, including port rotations, arrivals and departures and transit times.

China Cosco Holdings will splash out $618 million on five 14,500-TEU vessels that will be built by CSSC’s Jiangnan Changxing Shipbuilding yard as the mainland’s largest carrier continues to upgrade its fleet in an attempt to arrest declining profitability.

CMA CGM has upgraded its Amerigo service between the U.S. and the Mediterranean with the addition of a new call in Miami.

The cost of shipping a 40-foot container from Hong Kong to Los Angeles declined this week, with rates losing all gains brought on by a Sept. 1 general rate increase.

Maersk Group said it has raised $1.25 billion from the successful issue of two maiden U.S. dollar bonds.

With the odds growing that a global ballast water treaty will come into force next year, concern is building among shipowners, including container carriers, that its implementation will be chaotic, expensive and ineffective.

A $400 million loan necessary to complete the $5.3 billion Panama Canal expansion project has been received by the engineering consortium responsible for widening the canal, according to the Panama Canal Authority’s lead administrator, Channel News Asia reported.

As the use of formalized alliances and vessel-sharing agreements accelerates, carriers’ core product ― moving containers from Point A to Point B ― becomes increasingly identical across alliance partners in major trade lanes.

Executives from Maersk Line and Mediterranean Shipping Co., in an attempt to expedite the U.S. approval process, met with a U.S. Federal Maritime Commissioner last week to address questions regarding their proposed “2M” vessel-sharing agreement.

The tit-for-tat imposition of embargoes between Russia and the West has opened the door for Brazil beef exporters to significantly expand shipments to Russia in recent months, with greater growth likely in 2015.

Hapag-Lloyd and APL increase congestion surcharges for cargo moving through Jawaharlal Nehru (Nhava Sheva) and Pipavav to offset costs associated with worsening delays in intermodal connections to Delhi

Three major container lines have announced plans to launch a mega-alliance, dubbed Ocean Three, or as the JOC.com team likes to call it, O3.

New global alliances of container ship lines could produce a retaliatory surge in large-ship orders by competitors in 2016-2018, according to a research report by Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts.

State-owned Shipping Corporation of India has announced the launch of a fortnightly direct container service connecting major ports in the Indian subcontinent with Myanmar, starting this month.

T.S. Lines launches third India-China service in a vessel sharing agreement with Hanjin and Simatech

An estimated 300,000 40-foot reefer containers are expected to be added to the global fleet by 2018 as strong demand for perishables drives the business and improving technology enables their long distance transport.

Container freight rates will stabilize and may trend upward over the next few years despite the existing overcapacity of vessel space because of the expansion of existing carrier alliances and the creation of new ones, according to Rolf Habben Jansen, CEO of Hapag-Lloyd.

A new carrier alliance entered the fray this week after weeks of feverish speculation.

Taiwanese ocean carrier Yang Ming Line has confirmed that the fixed-rate time charter terms for five 14,000-TEU container ships, currently being built by CSBC Corp., will be extended to 10 years, with one two-year option, according to Seaspan.

Additional container lines have announced congestion surcharges for shipments moving to Sohar, Oman, to compensate for the extra costs caused by berthing delays and cargo processing bottlenecks.

A navel-gazing session by container shipping companies on the need for improved product differentiation and better service did little to impress an audience of customers and industry experts here this week.

EU antitrust authorities on Thursday gave Hapag-Lloyd the approval it needed for a merger with Chilean carrier CSAV.

APL has announced a steep increase in its congestion surcharges imposed earlier on import containers handled at the Indian ports of Jawaharlal Nehru (Nhava Sheva) and Pipavav...

Crowley Maritime’s subsidiary Carib Energy LLC has been granted a 20-year, small-scale U.S. Department of Energy license to export liquefied natural gas to...

After gaining ground thanks to general rate increases in the first week of September, the Drewry benchmark rate from Hong Kong to Los Angeles dropped $100 per container this week.