Key ports in Asia have been facing high levels of congestion and delays, with nearly 60% of container ships waiting at anchor, according to Linerlytica.

The research firm's latest report shows that capacity at anchorage in the Port of Singapore neared 600,000 TEU in June.

However, Maersk's APM Terminals claim the situation at their terminals is different.

Director of Operations Olaf Gelhausen tells Shipping Watch that APM terminals are "comparatively well under control with very little waiting times."

The company has container terminals in 60 locations, including Port Tanjung Pelepas near Singapore.

According to Gelhausen, expanding Port Tanjung Pelepas into a hub helped avoid the bottlenecks caused by Red Sea reroutings.

"It is obvious that the ongoing situation in the Red Sea has affected many players in the global logistics chain, and the situation will not improve anytime soon," says Gelhausen.

He believes "unpredictable times have become the new normal," which requires companies to adjust and remain vigilant to meet market needs.

The hub-and-spoke system, where large ships dock in less congested ports (Bremerhaven rather than Hamburg in Germany, for example), would use smaller ships to transport goods to smaller ports such as Aarhus, Gothenburg, and Gdansk.

According to Maersk and its new Gemini Alliance partner Hapag-Lloyd, this will help increase their schedule reliability to 90%.

Although the new hubs are not scheduled for inauguration until the implementation of the Gemini partnership in February 2025, APM Terminals initiated their investments in major ports about three to four years prior.

The company reports that the impacts of these investments are already becoming noticeable.

So far, the known hubs currently chosen by APM terminals are:

• APM Terminals Maasvlakte II in Rotterdam, The Netherlands
• North Sea Terminal Bremerhaven in Germany
• APM Terminals Algeciras in Spain
• APM Terminals Tangier in Morocco
• Medport Tangier in Morocco
• Suez Canal Container Terminal in Port Said, Egypt
• Port of Salalah in Oman
• Port of Tanjung Pelepas in Malaysia

The full list of hubs will be announced close to the launch of the new alliance.

As an overview of the Maersk-Hapag-Lloyd partnership, Kuehne+Nagel issued a market assessment of the upcoming Gemini Cooperation earlier this year.