New & Updated Services MSC MSC announced on 26 December the opening of a new direct trade between Türkiye, North Africa, Portugal and Spain. No further details were published about this new East and West Mediterranean service except for the port rotation, which will be as follows: Mersin – Aliaga – Derince – Tekirdag – Algiers – Casablanca – Sines – Valencia – Algiers – Marsaxlokk – Mersin. MSC is reshuffling its Angola service, offering Pointe-Noire, Congo Republic (CR), and Matadi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), as of January 2023. The Congolese port will serve as a key transhipment hub for cargo destined for Angola and Namibia, highlighted the carrier. This weekly service deploys an average weekly capacity of 2,724 TEU and has the following port rotation: Durban - Cape Town -Lobito - Luanda - Lagos - Tema - Lome - Namibe - Walvis Bay – Durban. MSC has also updated its NWC to South Africa service by revising port rotation in Northern Europe and adding a call at Cape Town on the northbound leg. The first vessel with this update will be the 8,800 TEU MSC Lily, with ETA in Rotterdam on 9 January 2023. The updated rotation of the service will be: Rotterdam - London Gateway - Antwerp - Hamburg - Le Havre - Sines - Las Palmas - Coega - Durban - Cape Town - Las Palmas – Rotterdam. In addition, the carrier announced multiple blank sailings between 23 January and 2 February in an attempt to balance capacity during the Chinese holiday season. The new planning affects the carrier's transpacific network, Asia and North Europe trade, Asia to NWC & Mediterranean, and the Asia to USA and Canada West Coast trade. MAERSK Maersk issued multiple announcements on their website informing customers about blank sailings and rescheduling of port calls for the next month. Just like MSC, the new plans come in light of the upcoming Chinese New Year period. A number of sailings from Far East Asia to the Mediterranean will be blanked from 12 January to 10 February. In addition, some sailings from Asia to North America will be blanked during the last week of January. HAPAG-LLOYD Hapag-Lloyd updated its South America East Coast Service (SEC) adding the ports of Charleston and Everglades on a weekly basis while extending the omissions at Norfolk until March 2023. Port rotation of the service is: Buenos Aires - Rio Grande – Itapoa – Santos - Rio De Janeiro – Salvador – Pecem – Newark - Philadelphia - Charleston – Jacksonville - Port Everglades – Santos - Buenos Aires. EVERGREEN VMI>> As of January 2023, Evergreen will launch its new weekly Intra-Asia service. The service is operated by Evergreen and the first vessel on this service will be "EVER CHASTE” with an average capacity of 1,800 TEU. The vessel is due to arrive at Haiphong on 10 January. Port rotation for this service is: Ho Chi Minh City - Port Klang - Tanjung Pelepas – Jakarta - Semarang - Surabaya - Singapore – Tanjung Pelepas – Haiphong - Ho Chi Minh City. PIL PIL enhanced its Gulf China Service (GCS), with the addition of Hamad Port in Qatar. The enhanced service will commence on 9 January 2023 from Shanghai, deploying seven vessels with an average capacity of 4000 – 5200 TEUs. Port rotation is: Shanghai - Ningbo- Nansha - Shekou – Singapore - Jebel Ali – Dammam – Hamad – Singapore – Shanghai. Making business even better… Going Green Shanghai International Port Group (SIPG) has signed a long-term strategic cooperation agreement with French carrier CMA CGM to promote onshore power supply, reported Seatrade Maritime News. The agreement facilitates the use of onshore power at Shanghai port for CMA’s container vessels and consequently reduces the carbon footprint of the carrier and the Chinese group. A.P. Moller - Maersk partnered with U.S.-based SunGas Renewables, Inc., for large-scale production of renewable fuels. “This is Maersk’s 9th such partnership to drive the acceleration of global production capacity for green methanol,” highlighted the carrier in a press release. The partnership covers the production of green methanol from multiple facilities in the United States. The first production facility is expected to begin operations in 2026 with an estimated annual capacity of nearly 390,000 tonnes, said Maersk. Furthermore, the Danish carrier posted a video of the opening ceremony for the construction of new ocean-going vessels that can sail on green methanol. Maersk has so far a total of 19 methanol-powered container carriers on order at Hyundai Heavy Industries and Hyundai Mipo Dockyard. These include six 17,000 TEU vessels, twelve 16,000 TEU container ships and one feeder. South Korea’s carrier HMM is also investing in methanol-fuelled ships. Media outlets reported on the company’s call for tenders to build up to nine 8,000 TEU dual-fuel ships. “We are looking into the likelihood of ordering methanol dual-fuelled ships in line with our mid and long-term strategy announced in July this year,” an HMM spokesperson told Splash274.com. From methanol to electric energy. COSCO embarked on a new project for the construction of two electric container ships each with a capacity of 700 TEU. According to the company’s statement, the vessels will serve the main line of the Yangtze River and they are due for delivery in the second half of 2023. Investments Ocean Network Express (ONE) signed an agreement to acquire a 51% stake in two terminal companies on the US West Coast. Both TraPac LLC and Yusen Terminals LLC—owned by Mitsui OSK Lines and Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha, respectively—provide container terminal services in Los Angeles, with the YTL also operating in Oakland in the US west coast, Lloyd’s List reported. The company said the acquisition aims at safeguarding the carrier’s access to terminal capacity in key and strategic gateways. THE Alliance announced it plans to reconfigure its network next year to deploy larger ships on some of its top trade lanes. The carriers also said they intend to use a modern series of fuel-efficient 23,500+ TEU vessels to replace smaller vessels. THE plans to sail larger newbuild ships on the Asia-North Europe trade as part of its enhanced service network. In addition, the alliance will add 14,000/15,000 TEU vessels on the Asia and Mediterranean trade as well as on the US East Coast trade. Other MSC issued a statement rejecting claims by US news agency Bloomberg saying it has been “infiltrated” by a drug-smuggling cartel. A Bloomberg report hinted that a large number of MSC’s seafarers were involved in the smuggling of nearly 20 tonnes of cocaine on board the vessel ‘MSC Gayane’ in June of 2019. In response, the carrier said, “MSC strongly objects to Bloomberg’s headline claim that the subversion of a small number of seafarers from Montenegro, in what remain very specific circumstances, amounts to the "company" being "infiltrated" by a drugs cartel.” In addition, the company stressed that it “remains firmly opposed to this illegal trade and actively takes steps to counter the criminals’ new techniques.”