by Lloyd's List
17 October 2024 (Lloyd's List) - CALIFORNIA’S chief container ports are the big winners from the fallout of the latest alliance shake-up on the east-west trades, with both Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland set to gain a significant number of additional direct transpacific calls from next year.
Services from Asia to North America will undergo a significant overhaul from the start of February 2025, when all of the top 10 largest box carriers will realign into fresh or revised alliances and vessel sharing agreements.
The disbanding of 2M sees Maersk join forces with Hapag-Lloyd under the guise of the Gemini Cooperation with the latter set to leave The Alliance. Meanwhile, the former Asian The Alliance members, namely Ocean Network Express, HMM and Yang Ming, will continue under the banner of the Premier Alliance.
The Ocean Alliance remains unchanged, with CMA CGM, Cosco and Evergreen preserving their trunk trade triumvirate. Finally, Mediterranean Shipping Co will effectively go it alone, but in the case of the transpacific trade will share slots and ships with Israeli line Zim on US east and Gulf coast services.
These carriers are responsible for the largest share of cargoes transported between Asia and North America, a trade second only to the vast intra-Asia trade in terms of annual volumes.
For ports in North America, securing direct transpacific calls from the major liner players can effectively be lose or bust, particularly for Pacific ports that rely heavily on Asian import cargoes. The fate of Portland in the state of Oregon is a case in point.
While the reveal of new port rotations on transpacific loops ahead of next year did not prove as considerable as on the Asia-Europe leg (see Lloyd’s List’s previous trade analysis), the outcome has proved to serve some ports better than others. The chief benefactors though are clear.
Although gains of direct calls from the core carriers are minimal under the trade’s restructuring, these were largely share between both the Los Angeles/Long Beach container complex and fellow Californian port, Oakland.
Oakland stands to gain an additional five calls, and LA/LB as many as four, with the ports central to the make-up of the Premier Alliance’s network on the Asia-North America West Coast trade, while also serving as key hub’s for Gemini and MSC. Los Angeles is also the sole Pacific coast port represented on Zim’s two standalone services.
Indeed, the only other ports to gain an additional service on the Asia-North America trade lane next year will be Houston and Mobile, Alabama, in the US Gulf, a factor aided by new calls from MSC in addition to those from Gemini.
Los Angeles and Long Beach will remain the most frequented Pacific coast port by a distance with as many as 25 calls from Oakland (16) and Canada’s Vancouver (9).
But what about ports that stand to lose direct calls from Asia.
On the Pacific coast, four ports lose a call. In the Pacific northwest Tacoma loses out having a call dropped in the fallout of the revised Premier Alliance network and the decision by Gemini choosing not to opt for the Washington state port as one of its regional hubs. Alaska’s Dutch Harbour meanwhile fails to compensate for the loss of its former 2M call, leaving the Ocean Alliance as its only direct mainline transpacific service from February, while Portland will lose its sole call on the trade.
The only other Pacific coast port to miss out on a direct call from Asia next year will be Lazaro Cardenas. However, the Mexican port still boasts four calls and will benefit as one of Gemini’s hub ports.
Like other Mexican ports, Lazaro Cardenas has profited in recent years both in terms of volumes and calls from a boom in trade most notably from Chinese manufacturers increasingly using the country’s terminals to circumvent tariffs on US goods.
Although the US is looking to crackdown on such trade opportunists, carrier schedules on the transpacific trade still feature a significant number of Mexican stopovers seemingly undeterred by impending restrictions.
In addition to the quota of Lazaro Cardenas, Manzanillo and Ensenada both hold onto their previous call tallies.
Of similar note is Prince Rupert. The Canadian Pacific Northwest port, located in a town which is essentially a small logging outpost, has been a prominent feature on mainline transpacific networks over the past decade, as an alternative routing for cargoes into domestic and US heartlands via the unrivalled railroad connections of the Canadian National Railway.
Its unique trade proposition continues to gain the attention of carriers and shippers alike, a trend that looks set to continue having maintained its trio of transpacific calls as part of 2025 networks.
On the other side of the continent, New York/New Jersey and Savannah both lose a duo of calls from Asia following the carrier shake-up, including those from Zim having pooled into MSC’s regional offering.
Nevertheless, the two ports hold onto their tied position of boasting the most transpacific calls of all North America’s US east and Gulf ports. At their expense Charleston and Virginia close the gap in terms of direct transpacific calls from next year, when the share of transpacific trade will be at a much more even keel between the US east coast port majors.
Elsewhere, Wilmington will lose one of its two calls, settling for a solitary MSC service, as Boston misses out altogether with Zim pulling the plug on its direct call.
