Bocimar of Belgium has condemned two 12- year old container ships to be scrapped. The ships, the 54,519gt/2004 built and 4,800 TEU capacity Bear Hunter and Bull Hunter, had been purchased from Japanese interests in January 2015. The price of $300 per ldt was among the highest achieved for any ship sent for scrap at that time, during October 2016. Panamax containerships have been sent en masse to the scrap man this year as rates for this vessel size in particular have faltered.

CMA CGM has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with French energy group ENGIE to promote the use of liquefied natural gas as a marine fuel. The agreement is centred around a technical and economic study on the use of LNG as a fuel for future container ships. The study will focus primarily on the development of engineering specifications for a bunkering vessel adapted specifically to LNG-powered container ships. The companies hope the study will help improve over time the logistics chain necessary to fuel LNG-powered containerships in order to help promote their deployment. At a time when financial woes are rife through the shipping industry, it is pleasing to see reports such as that in late October declaring that CMA CGM has already reimbursed half of a $1.6 billion bank loan taken out to fund its acquisition of Singapore-based Neptune Orient Lines (NOL).

CMA CGM announced the acquisition of NOL last December in a $2.4 billion deal that handed it market leadership on trans-Pacific routes and reinforced its global scale to help weather a prolonged downturn in container shipping. The group, which has until August 2017 to pay back the loan, used a sale-andleaseback deal for containers worth $578 million and a $259 million securitisation programme covering customer debts to finance the partial reimbursement. The group, which completed the takeover of NOL in June, aims to generate $1 billion from asset sales after reviewing activities at the combined company. It also has a separate 18-month plan to reduce costs by $1 billion by the end of 2017. CMA CGM and CMB Financial Leasing are said to be finalising a sale-and-leaseback deal for eight large 9,200-10,700 TEU capacity containerships worth $500-$600 million, with bareboat charter agreements in place for seven years. The vessels are owned by APL (a CMA CGM subsidiary) and were built between 2011 and 2014 at South Korean yards. On 25th October CMA CGM announced that its services on the Asia-East Med trades would be placed under the Winter Programme with a temporary merging of the PHOEX and BEX lines into one operation. The new rotation is: Pusan- Shanghai-Ningbo-Chiwan-Port Kelang- Koper-Trieste-Izmit-Avcilar-Constanza- Odessa-Avcilar-Piraeus-Port Kelang-Pusan. The first vessel on the revised rotation was the 93,702gt/2016 built Cosco Shipping Panama from Pusan on 30th October. That same day the company announced a significant service improvement from Morocco to West Africa on the WAZZAN service, operated with 3 vessels of 1,200 TEU capacity. Starting 8th November 2016 with the 11,062gt/1994 built Delmas Swala at Casablanca, WAZZAN’s modified port rotation will save 6 days as Dakar can now be reached in 5 days from Casablanca on a weekly basis. The rotation is, Algeciras- Tangiers-Casablanca-Las Palmas-Dakar- Nouakchott-Nouadhibou-Algeciras.

In November, to coincide with the beginning of the export season in Morocco for citrus fruits and vegetables, CMA CGM and its subsidiary OPDR placed a unique offer on the market in the form of six maritime services to allow the linking of Morocco directly with the main areas of consumption (Russia, Europe, Middle East). Ten departures a week are offered with three direct weekly lines (DUNKRUSS, AGAX and CISS) to Northern Europe plus AGAPOV and NADOR MED EXPRESS to Southern Europe whilst a new NADOR MED EXPRESS service directly links Nador, located at the centre of a clementine producing region, to the French ports of Port Vendres and Marseille, with the best transit times on the market.

Costamare of Greece secured a deal in late October with the Hanjin Heavy Industries shipyard in the Philippines to defer delivery of its four remaining 11,010 TEU capacity newbuildings under construction at the yard. Costamare ordered five of the vessels from the Subic Bay yard. The first was delivered as the 112,836gt Cape Akritas. Costamare recently concluded taking delivery of five 14,000 TEU capacity newbuildings, which have gone onto 10-year charters to Evergreen. The company holds a 40% stake in each ship under its acquisition alliance with York Capital Management.

Diana Containerships moved to scrap a Panamax containership in October that was delivered fewer than 10 years ago. The 54,828gt and 4,923 TEU capacity ship was new in December 2006, delivered from Imabari’s Koyo Dockyard. The ship has now been sent for recycling, becoming the youngest such ship to date to be sold for demolition.

Rates for Panamax vessels have dropped dramatically so the option to scrap many examples is most inviting to owners. Time charter rates for the Panamax segment went down from the monthly average of $15,800 per day in March 2015 to a monthly average of just $5,755 per day in July 2016, a drop of 63.5%. The capacity of demolished containerships in 2016 amounted to 444,000 TEU by November, beating the previous peak of 2013 with two months still to go.

Eimskip of Iceland has reached an agreement to acquire the Norwegian shipping and logistics company Nor Lines. The company now plans to restructure Nor Lines’ business in order to improve its services and profitability by aligning it with Eimskip’s current operations in Norway. Nor Lines operates a fleet consisting of seven cargo vessels that operate three different trade lanes in and out of Norway.

Out of the five vessels to be taken over by Eimskip from the Nor Lines fleet, one will be owned and four will be chartered. Completion of the transaction is subject to approval by the Norwegian Competition Authority.

Evergreen Line, in co-operation with Cosco Shipping, has launched a new Adriatic-Israel service (AIS), opening up the corridor between Northern Adriatic ports, Piraeus and Israel. Two 1,000 TEU capacity ships will be deployed, one per company. The Koper (Slovenia)-Ravenna-Venice-Piraeus-Haifa- Ashdod (Israel)-Koper circuit commenced from 4th October.

Hanjin Shipping had some 15 ships berthed and serviced by PSA Singapore from late September, releasing over 3,000 laden containers to affected parties. The port operator was also acting as a container depot to store more than 3,500 empty containers. Over a two week period from 21st September Singapore hosted the Hanjin Jebel Ali, Hanjin Argentina, Hanjin Port Adelaide, Hanjin Los Angeles, Hanjin Hungary, Hanjin Blue, Hanjin Louisiana, Hanjin Gold, Hanjin Korea, Hanjin Rome, Hanjin Indigo, Hanjin America, Hanjin New York, Hanjin China and Hanjin Netherlands.

On 7th October the 74,962gt/2007 built Hanjin Xiamen was placed under arrest whilst docked at South Gyeongsang near Busan despite an injunction against asset seizure obtained at the time of Hanjin Shipping’s bankruptcy application. The action was brought by bunker supplier World Fuel Services (WFS) for fuel payments owed. Although the shipping line had obtained a bankruptcy protection order from the Seoul Central District Court preventing the seizure of Hanjin’s assets, WFS had reasoned that the vessel was not technically ‘owned’ by Hanjin but was ‘beneficially owned’ as it was on loan from a special purpose vehicle set up in Panama by Hanjin. Including the Hanjin Xiamen, there were a total of six Hanjin ships arrested across the globe as of 10th October. The other five were Hanjin Rome in Singapore, Hanjin Scarlet at Prince Rupert in Canada, Hanjin Vienna at Vancouver in Canada and Hanjin Baltimore and Hanjin Bremerhaven at the Panama Canal. As of 15th November 94 of Hanjin’s 97 containerships had completed discharging their cargoes. As for the remainder, 16 vessels were scheduled to berth at Korean ports to unload their containers. The plight of the Hanjin Xiamen was expected to be confirmed at an appeal hearing. In mid-October the Seoul Central District Court, which is overseeing Hanjin Shipping’s receivership process, published a notice on 14th October to put the bankrupt container line’s Asia- U.S.A operations up for sale along with manpower, vessels, and 10 overseas operations. Reports suggest that Hanjin’s rehabilitation plan will look to reshape the Korean line into an intra-Asia container operator player, disposing of its larger ships and its dry bulk fleet. Hanjin has until 19th December to submit plans to save itself. Hanjin’s demise could bring about one of the largest combined maritime insurance claims in history. The final bill could be as high as $1.8 billion, with half of it in marine insurance, according to investment bank Credit Suisse.

The company made its Hanjin estimate on assuming 10% of the $14 billion of insured cargo stranded at sea was unrecoverable. Meanwhile, the number of creditors to have registered claims against Hanjin Shipping at a court in Seoul ahead of an 25th October deadline was close to 4,000. On 24th October came the news that Hanjin had asked its appointed court permission to close its European businesses including 10 offices across the continent with a regional headquarters in Germany, which it inherited when it acquired Senator Lines 19 years ago. The 45,169gt/2013 built Hanjin Scarlet docked at Vancouver on 27th October with nearly 800 containers aboard having been anchored some 45km outside of Prince Rupert for several months after Hanjin’s collapse. The ship had originally docked on 30th August but was then arrested and sent to anchor. The ship, which had 24 crew members, unloaded all cargo just 10 days before the crew’s provisions ran out.

German bank HSH Nordbank snapped up nine Neopanamax Hanjin Shipping containerships during late October and is leasing them to the partners of the 2M alliance. Maersk Line has taken six of the ships and MSC the other three. The first ship will be delivered in December. This development throws the future of Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM) once again into doubt. HMM had been linked to acquire Hanjin’s five largest ships, all 13,000 TEU capacity as part of an attempt to join 2M.

On 7th November it was revealed that the Long Beach container terminal in California had chartered a container ship to remove an estimated 4,300 empty containers belonging to the defunct Hanjin container shipping operation and to free up the chassis that they are on. In total, around 6,000 Hanjin containers reside at the port. That same day, brokers in Hong Kong were invited to inspect four Hanjin containerships that lead creditor Korea Development Bank has put up for sale. The four 4,200 TEU sister ships of 2008/09 were the 40,487gt Hanjin Kingston, Hanjin Atlanta, Hanjin Gydnia and Hanjin Monaco. The quartet was anchored in Hong Kong for sales inspections as part of the dramatic sale of the Hanjin fleet following the line’s bankruptcy. KDB was hoping to obtain around $6 million per ship.

Hapag-Lloyd plans to launch the SW Service, a new weekly shipping service linking North Europe, the Caribbean and West Coast South America, from 8th February 2017 and consolidate all present services from North Europe to South America West Coast. The new SW Service will commence in Valparaiso, Chile, with the northbound departure of the Valparaiso Express. The first southbound sailing is expected to begin on 7th March 2017, from Rotterdam, with the same vessel. Hapag-Lloyd said it will operate four out of nine ships on the service, with a capacity of 10,500 TEU and 2,100 reefer plugs each. The SW Service will also deploy two feeder vessels covering Paita in Peru and Guayaquil in Ecuador, timed with the mainline vessel in Buenaventura, Colombia. The ports of call for the SW Service are: Rotterdam, London, Hamburg, Antwerp, Le Havre, Caucedo, Cartagena (Colombia), Manzanillo, PA (Mexico), Buenaventura, Guayaquil, Paita, Callao (Peru) and Puerto Angamos, Valparaiso (Chile). In April 2015 Hapag-Lloyd ordered the new Valparaíso Express-class ships, each with a capacity of 10,500 TEU, from Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries. The Valparaiso Express and sistership Callao Express were floated out on 9th October and the five sisters will be delivered between November 2016 and the spring of 2017. The Valparaíso Express is scheduled to be christened in early December in her namesake port in Chile.

Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM) is likely to bid for the transpacific assets of Hanjin Shipping. The bidding process for the transpacific operations was due to commence on 7th November. Hanjin, the largest bankruptcy in shipping history, put its transpacific business up for sale in October.

HMM, meanwhile, is still trying to confirm its membership of the 2M container shipping alliance and vessel sharing agreement between Maersk and MSC. HMM had previously been spurned from joining “The Alliance,” a new container conglomerate due to start operating in April 2017.

Liverpool2 deep sea container terminal at Liverpool, owned by Peel Ports, officially became fully operation on 7th November and also became the UK’s only deep-sea container terminal north of Felixstowe. Before the new £400 million terminal opened, the Port of Liverpool could only handle 5% of the world’s container ships. Liverpool2 means it can handle 95% of them, including new ships designed to go through the widened Panama Canal. Two 13,000 TEU capacity ships can berth there simultaneously. Maersk Line says it is not yet ready to commit its larger ships to the new terminal at this stage, preferring to see Liverpool2 prove itself in operation before considering bringing more services to the port. Subsidiary Seago only recently returned to Liverpool via a three-port feeder service on rotation from Algeciras to Liverpool and Dublin.

Maersk Line has restored its services to and from Iran, after a five-year absence. Nine mainline services are now offered with weekly departures on all major trade lanes to/from Jebel Ali, with a direct feeder to Bandar Abbas. For imports from Iran, there are three weekly services connecting the Middle East and Europe which include ME1, ME2 and ME3, the Horn of Africa service linking the Middle East and the Horn of Africa and the Masika Express service between the Middle East and East Africa. In addition, the company offers the Mesawa service connecting the Middle East and West Africa/South Africa. For exports to Iran, Maersk Line offers three additional services, AE1, AE11 and AE15, that link the Middle East and the Far East.

The 31,333gt/1998 built and 2,900 TEU capacity Maersk Patras suffered an engine room fire in the early hours of 1st November while the vessel was off the coast of Las Palmas, en-route to Conakry. The ship was subsequently diverted to Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, unloaded and was laid up awaiting her fate at the time of writing.

The next generation of Triple E containerships are set to accommodate 20,000 TEU per ship according to reports. The ships are currently under construction at Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) and look set to become the first of their kind to break the 20,000 TEU barrier. The 11 ships, an extensively modified version of the first EEEs, will deliver between April 2017 and May 2018. The ship’s bridge is now located two bays further forward, while the engine room and funnels have been shifted one bay aft. This not only increases container intake under the deck but also on deck due to the revised IMO visibility line. The new 206,000dwt series also incorporates a deeper hull than the earlier ships so each can carry 12 tiers of containers under deck rather than 11, and one tier higher has been incorporated above deck. The newbuilds will also boast two main engines with seven rather than eight cylinders. Both MOL and OOCL are also set to receive similar high capacity ships from 2017 via Samsung Heavy Industries. Shares in the Danish company fell and came in below forecasts. Low oil prices have depressed returns from the energy business which is the other main arm of the company. Reports however suggest that Maersk Line is prepared to lose money to win business.

MSC was reported as being in negotiations with a number of UK ports as potential alternatives to future shipments into Felixstowe during early October as congestion at the UK’s largest port continued. Felixstowe, like other ports around the world, has suffered as a result of stranded Hanjin containers following the South Korean carrier’s much-documented demise. MSC has also put paid to reports that its new TP1/Maple joint transpacific service alongside 2M partner Maersk Line had been abandoned. Rumours began when MSC announced a return to running the Maple line exclusively from 28th October including Canada’s largest port, Vancouver, as part of its full rotation. 2M introduced the new service to the transpacific trade in the wake of the Hanjin crisis, offering extra loaders to shippers to help with the capacity shortfall. The first vessel on the Asia-US west coast service left Yantian on 15th September and was followed by a further two sailings during China’s Golden Week holiday period. The full service then resumed with the 53,324gt/1997 built MSC Rochelle’s departure from Yantian, calling Shanghai and Busan before making stops in Long Beach and Vancouver. Maersk Line however is still looking at whether it too could continue its TP1 offering in some form.

Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK), Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) and Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha (K Line) have decided to merge their respective container divisions to form a brand a new company. The move fends off take-over speculation from abroad, something that had been especially pertinent for K Line.

The combined trio will have a container fleet with a capacity of 1.4m TEU and 110 ships making it the fifth largest container line in the world. The new company will form part of “The Alliance” from April 2017. NYK will have a 38% stake in the new venture with K Line and MOL holding 31% each. Providing that regulatory approval is granted, the new venture should start business on 1st April.

The Ocean Alliance, comprising of CMA CGM, COSCO Shipping, Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) and Evergreen, was given the go-ahead by the US Federal Maritime Commission (FMC), so became effective from Monday 24th October 2016. Agreement members were then permitted to share vessels, charter and exchange space on each other’s ships, and enter into cooperative working arrangements in international trade lanes between the United States of America and ports in Asia, Northern Europe, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, Canada, Central America, and the Caribbean.

The announcement follows an exhaustive review process by the Commission that thoroughly examined all aspects of the proposed agreement to assure that competition in the ocean transportation industry would not suffer. The alliance is looking to deploy increased ocean carrier services from Asia to the US East and Gulf Coast ports starting from April 2017. At the beginning of November the Ocean Alliance members signed a document entitled the Day One Product, which set out the proposed network, including port rotation for each service loop. The Day One network intends to deploy around 350 container vessels with an estimated total carrying capacity of 3.5 million TEUs to provide one of the most comprehensive service coverage in the market. The vessel deployment details for each service loop were due to be released around end of November.

Oldenburg-Portugiesische Dampfschiffs- Rhederei (OPDR), part of CMA CGM, has launched a new weekly service connecting Continental Europe, the United Kingdom and Norway. The new PENN service links Rotterdam with the UK and three Norwegian ports, namely Oslo, Moss and Brevik.

According to the company, Hamburg was to be added as an additional hub port at the beginning of November. OPDR has deployed two ice-strengthened 700 TEU vessels and the port rotation is, Rotterdam- Immingham-Teesport-Grangemouth- Rotterdam-Oslo-Moss-Brevik-Rotterdam.

Viasea Shipping AS of Norway, a new shipping company, was planning to launch a container line between Rotterdam and Oslofjord starting from November 2016. The first departure was scheduled for 4th November from Rotterdam, with an arrival in Oslo on 7th November.

X-Press Etna, a 9,981gt/2006 built and 868 TEU capacity feeder containership operated by Singapore based X-Press Feeders, ran aground in Rotterdam at around 0730 local time on 13th November. She grounded at Pernis shortly after leaving her berth having suffered engine failure. She managed to attract quite a crowd and Rotterdam Port Authority sent tugs to refloat her, which was achieved around 1300 that day. The vessel was then taken to Frisohaven for inspection prior to continuing to her destination of St. Petersburg.

Zim Integrated Shipping Services of Israel was reported in early November as looking at selling its global container network and switching to become a regional Mediterranean operator. Zim is the world’s 16th largest container line.