APL revealed details of a new weekly China Southeast Asia Express (CSX) service on 8th January 2019 that directly connects Hong Kong, South China, Taiwan to four ports in the Philippines. Each week, the new service will call the Philippines ports of Subic Bay, Batangas, General Santos and Davao. The CSX service commenced from Hong Kong on 18th January, calling at Hong Kong, Chiwan, Kaohsiung, Subic Bay, Batangas, General Santos and Davao.

BG Freight (a subsidiary of Maersk Line) has relocated its Immingham-Europe service to Hull Container Terminal, following shipper concerns over accessibility. The 800-TEU capacity weekly sailing moved on 12th January to Hull. Both Humberside ports are owned and operated by Associated British Ports (ABP), which has recently invested £50m into developing both terminals, doubling Hull’s capacity to 240,000 TEU per year. Alongside this, Hull has trebled its weekly container sailings from 5 to 16 in 2018.

CMA CGM announced mid-December that it was dropping the subsidiary brand name of APL (originally American President Lines) from intra-Asia services in a merger with Cheng Lie Navigation (CNC) where the latter identity is retained for this market. There have been 15 APL and 50 CNC weekly services that serve the key markets from North Asia to Southeast Asia along the Far East corridor so the disappearance of the smaller operation was predictable. CMA CGM’s Short Sea Lines Med commenced its own Intra-Egypt feeder as from 27th December from Port Said weekly with a rotation as follows: Port Said West-Port Said East-Alexandria Old Port-Alexandria El Dekheila-Damietta-Port Said West. The ship was the 8,443gt/1999 built and 500 TEU capacity CMA CGM Lotus. In an effort to maintain the high service reliability and punctuality of the MOZEX service, the company has shortened this Asia to Tamatave route by 7 days with a direct call to Maputo after Pointe des Galets. Tamatave will be served on a weekly basis in relay by the dedicated feeder service via the regional hub in Reunion. The rotation is now Singapore-Tanjung Pelepas-Pointe des Galets-Tamatave (by feeder)-Maputo-Beira-Nacala-Port Louis-Singapore. The changes were effective from 30th December 2018 at Singapore and Pointe des Galets on 10th January 2019 using the 26,374gt/2012 built Beethoven. The NOURA service, connecting the Middle East to East Africa, was revised from the 3rd January 2019 call of the 26,050gt/2001 built CMA CGM Manet at Jebel Ali by the addition of a 6th 2,200 TEU capacity sistership and a new rotation of Jebel Ali-Mombasa-Mogadishu- Longoni-Nacala (fortnightly)-Beira (fortnightly)-Port Victoria-Jebel Ali.

Containerships, a subsidiary of the CMA CGM Group since October 2018, took delivery of the 17,982gt and 1,400 TEU capacity newbuild Containerships Nord (above) on 12th December, the company’s first container ship powered by LNG and the first of 4 sisterships. The vessel joins CMA CGM’s New Dunkrus service between Morocco and Northern Europe.

Crowley Maritime Corp. announced on 19th December that it had taken delivery of the 37,462gt/2018 built Taíno, the second of two of the world’s first ConRo ships powered by LNG from shipbuilder VT Halter Marine Inc., of Pascagoula, Mississippi. The 219.5m long and 22 knot Taíno will soon join sister ship El Coquí, which was delivered in July 2018, in providing fast, reliable and environmentally friendly shipping and logistics services between Jacksonville, Florida., and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Evergreen of Taiwan has ordered four 2,500 TEU capacity containerships from the Jiangnan Shipyard, marking its first ever newbuilding contract placed in mainland China. These vessels, with hull numbers H2650-H2653, will use the newest design of Shanghai Merchant Ship Design & Research Institute and be fitted with exhaust scrubbers. The ships will each cost $32m-$33m with delivery scheduled for mid-2021. This newbuilding contract follows a fleet renewal plan announced by the company in 2018, which consists of 38 new feeder ships. (24 with a 1,800 TEU capacity and 14 with a 2,500 TEU capacity).

Samskip is taking the lead in an ambitious initiative to develop autonomous, zero-emissions container ships that also compete in terms of cost. Europe’s largest multimodal operator has been named lead partner in the SeaShuttle Project that seeks to bring emissions-free, autonomous container ships to the market that can also operate at a profit. The announcement coincided with the award of €6 million from the Norwegian Government to the SeaShuttle Project to progress the development of two all-electric ships to serve ports in Poland, Sweden and Norway. The vessels will use state-of-the-art hydrogen fuel cells for their propulsion power. SeaShuttle is one of six initiatives included in PILOT-E, a €100 million-plus scheme involving the Research Council, Innovation Norway and Enova, aiming to bring solutions for the climate-neutral industries of the future to market more quickly.

THE Alliance, which consists of Hapag-Lloyd, Ocean Network Express, and Yang Ming, announced on 18th December 2018 the details of their revamped service network for 2019. THE Alliance will deploy a fleet of more than 249 ships connecting 76 ports throughout Asia, North Europe, the Mediterranean, North America, Canada, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, Indian Subcontinent, the Middle East and Red Sea. The major enhancements include a newly designed pendulum service, to replace Far East Europe 1 service (FE1), Pacific Southwest 1 service (PS1) and Pacific Southwest 2 service (PS2), and a new Pacific Northwest 4 service (PN4), offering a wider range of direct calls across North America West Coast, Europe and Asia. The launch of the PN4 service will provide more efficient and comprehensive links between Asia and PNW. Moving forward, a necessary capacity upgrade to the existing Asia-Europe network and overall optimized port-pair connections will be implemented to accommodate client requirements that include greater reliability, stability and service quality.

Yang Ming Marine Transport Corporation took delivery of the new 14,220 TEU, 151,451gt/2018 built capacity ships YM Wonderland (above) and YM Wisdom in December from Imabari Shipbuilding in Japan. The 366.44m long/51.2m beam, 15.524m draught and 23 knot vessels are the second and third of 5 sisterships with the YM Wellbeing having arrived in October 2018. The two ships were scheduled for delivery in February 2019 for deployment on THE Alliance Asia-Europe service.