Top 40 Container Carriers

Beneficial cargo owners are watching how the alliances will impact their supply chains between Asia and Europe and North America.

Maersk Line is reorganizing the port rotation of its Mawingu Express, a weekly direct service from India to East Africa, effective in early February.

CMA CGM on Friday released extensive details of the Ocean Three east-west alliance that it will begin early in 2015 along with United Arab Shipping Co. and China Shipping Container Line.

TUI, the German tourism group, is talking with potential buyers of its remaining stake in Hapag-Lloyd as a way of finally exiting container shipping, the chairman of the former owner of the country’s largest ocean carrier said.

Although Hapag-Lloyd announced the completion of its merger with Chilean carrier CSAV on Dec. 2, it must still navigate the rocky shoals created by the two carriers’ combined losses and heavy debt load.

Mergers and acquisitions and soon-to-launch alliances are changing the rankings of the JOC Top 40 Container Carriers in U.S. containerized trade. Volume increased 2.7 percent year-over-year to 23.7 million 20-foot-equivalent units in the first nine months of 2014, with Maersk Line and Mediterranean Shipping Co. accounting for 21.4 percent of total trade.

The CKYHE Alliance this week received U.S. regulatory approval to further integrate its newest member, Evergreen Line, into its vessel-sharing agreement covering the trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic trade lanes.

Maersk Line is reviewing the ocean and inland services it provides in the trans-Pacific trade — a notoriously high-cost and unprofitable trade lane for container lines — with an eye to increasing the rates it gets for those services or eliminating those that don’t make money.

Maersk Group Chief Executive Nils Andersen reiterated Tuesday that the 2M vessel-sharing agreement between Maersk and Mediterranean Shipping Co. will launch in January.

Israel Corp. will shift its stake in Zim Integrated Shipping Services, along with several other companies, to a holdings company that will be listed on stock exchanges in New York and Tel Aviv, the company announced.

Hapag-Lloyd is looking for a safe haven. Like many of its rivals, the German carrier is seeking that haven in the form of new or enlarged alliances. But it's taking the pursuit for stability even further, restructuring its ownership and bringing in a new CEO who will steer the carrier into new routes, new ships and a merger that will elevate the fourth-largest container line by capacity.

Nearly $300 million in subsidies were given to four Chinese ship lines today, as the Chinese government begins to roll out parts of a six-year plan to update its shipping industry.

Maersk is facing aggressive competition on its most lucrative north-south routes, which are being targeted by rival carriers seeking to offset losses from the overtonnaged Asia-Europe trade lane.

Maersk Line plans to invest $3 billion a year for up to five years to order ships with a combined capacity of 425,000 20-foot-equivalent units for delivery between 2017 and 2019, enabling the world’s largest carrier to grow with the market.

Maersk Line clarified a recent comment by CEO Soren Skou in which he appeared to say that his company would not relinquish its longtime No. 1 ranking after Alphaliner said it would be overtaken by Mediterranean Shipping Co. in 2016.

The 2M and O3 alliances likely will first lock horns in the Asia-Mediterranean trade, with planned increases in capacity threatening to unleash a rate war, according to analyst Alphaliner.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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

A decade-long revamp of its culture is driving profitability gains at Maersk Line, the world's largest global container line.

The three container lines planning to link up in a new vessel sharing agreement — CMA CGM, United Arab Shipping Co. and China Shipping Container Line — will initially operate 18 separate services covering the four major east-west trades, sources say.

CMA CGM, United Arab Shipping Co. and China Shipping Container Line will soon announce the formation of a new east-west vessel-sharing agreement, according to industry sources reached and news reports circulating Friday.

Maersk Line and Mediterranean Shipping Co. appear to have the same confidence that Chinese regulators will approve their “2M” vessel-sharing agreement as they did before China’s rejection of the P3 Network, said U.S. Federal Maritime Commissioner Richard Lidinsky.

In reporting its second-quarter and first-half 2014 results this week, Maersk Line again showed how its financial fortunes are diverging from most of the rest of the container shipping industry.

The cost benefits of Evergreen Marine joining the CKYH Alliance were reflected in its second-quarter earnings, which saw the Taipei-based carrier returning to profitability.

Taiwanese ocean carrier Yang Ming Line has upgraded its intra-Asia service network to better meet growing demand in the region.

The findings of a Chinese Ministry of Transport probe into rate filing by container lines and NVOCCs in the China-Japan market are expected to be released shortly. The case is being watched closely by foreign carriers to see whether China applies the same standard to its own carriers as it did to the erstwhile P3 Network.

The U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission cleared the planned merger between Hapag-Lloyd and Compania Sud Americana de Vapores, which will create the world’s fourth-largest ocean container line.

First-quarter 2014 numbers are in for the U.S. containerized ocean trade, with year-over-year results essentially flat.

Maersk Group says it completed a $5.1 billion syndicated revolving credit facility to replace loans maturing in 2015, reducing its financial costs.

In announcing sharply lower losses for the first three months of the year, CSAV said it expects to close on a merger agreement with Hapag-Lloyd in the fourth quarter.

Full-year 2013 numbers are in for the U.S. containerized ocean trade, and, as expected, year-over-year growth in imports, exports and total trade was middling.

They’re not all increasing their U.S. trade volumes, but the carriers making up the proposed P3 Network are boosting their combined traffic, an indication of the big ships they’re cascading to the major U.S. east-west trades.