APL, as part of the Ocean Alliance, started April with the first sailings of the Pacific Gulf Loop 6 (PG6) service bound for Houston from Singapore, and the Far-East Express 1 (FX1) service heading for Southampton from Xingang. Offering 38 services for the Ocean Alliance, APL is primed to offer its widest market coverage ever.

Bermuda Container Line (BCL) has signed a contract to order a new, custom built and LNG ready container vessel to service Bermuda. The new ship is scheduled to be delivered in the first quarter of 2019, at which time BCL’s current container vessel, the 6,299gt/1990 built Oleander, will be retired. BCL said that the new containership will be the most technologically-advanced vessel serving Bermuda and will be outfitted to carry dry and refrigerated containers, trucks, cars and other wheeled equipment, along with over-sized project cargo. She will also be equipped with fuel-efficient main and auxiliary engines as well as leading-edge loading and cargo carrying capability.

BG Freight Line of Rotterdam, a short sea shipping firm which is part of the Peel Ports Group, launched a new weekly container service to directly connect Cork and Liverpool from 27th March. The weekly schedule of the new service will be Liverpool (Saturday), Cork (Monday), Liverpool (Wednesday). At the end of each week, the vessel will continue to offer services between Belfast, Greenock and Liverpool. The route will initially be served by the 2,899gt/1995 built ships Thea II and RMS Veritas, however, from 2018 BG Freight will take delivery of four short-sea feeder vessels designed for the company’s Irish Sea Hub services.

Claus-Peter Offen of Hamburg has taken over the Munich-based Conti Group following a shareholders agreement of the two companies. According to the terms of the deal, Offen is taking over 100% of the corporate shares of the Conti Group and the qualified majority of shares in the Bremer Bereederungsgesellschaft BBG. After the takeover, the Conti Group will continue as an independent company. With the addition of Conti Group’s 68 ships and BBG’s managed fleet, the Offen Group will have a fleet of 169 ships: 95 container ships with 631,000 TEU/ 7.8 million dwt, 37 bulkers with 3.0 million dwt and 37 product tankers with 1.8 dwt. The Conti Group has a fleet of 30 containerships, 8 product tankers and 29 bulk carriers, while BBG is in charge of the technical management of 35 bulk carriers including the aforementioned 29 Conti vessels. Germany’s Offen Group operates around 70 containerships with a total of 417,000 TEU capacity. The company’s ships are employed primarily in scheduled services by the large charter companies such as MSC, Maersk, CMA CGM, Hapag Lloyd and Hamburg Süd.

CMA CGM suffered a $325m net loss in 2016 in contrast to a $567m profit in 2015. The loss made including the contribution of NOL, which the company acquired in June 2016, was equal to $452m. While the company’s revenue was up 1.9% year-on-year to $16bn including NOL’s contribution, it was down 14.7% to $13.4bn on a comparable basis. Following the acquisition of NOL, which operates under the APL brand, the group’s volumes rose by 20% year-on-year to 15.6m TEU in 2016, despite being down 1.3% to 12.8m TEU on a comparable basis.

Containerships of Finland managed to reduce its net loss during 2016 and ended the year with a loss of €1.4m compared to a net loss of €6.7m in 2015. The company said that its revenue for the period was slightly down to €197.9m from €199.6m in 2015. In 2016, cargo levels continued to decrease partly due to low oil prices, but the sharp increase in vessel fuel prices during the last quarter of 2016 impacted directly on the group’s operating expenses. At the same time, Russia and Libya, two markets important for the group, are expected to see economic growth in the future as the price of oil rises. Due to market situation changes in the shipbuilding industry in China, Containerships’ parent company transferred its building contract for four LNG vessels to Guangzhou Wenchong Shipbuilding Company Limited. The agreements related to these events were finalised during summer 2016. The change of shipyard caused an approximate 9–12 month delay to the delivery of the vessels, which are now scheduled to join their owner in 2018 instead of 2017.

The keel laying ceremony for the first LNG vessel and the steel cutting ceremony of the second LNG vessel was held in Guangzhou on 7th April. Containerships plc secured €16.9m in March to finance the project of implementing the use of LNG throughout the container shipping company’s logistics supply chain. Containerships has been awarded the funds by the European Union and the Nordic Environment Finance Corporation (NEFCO). €10.7m will be allocated for ship investments, and €6.2m for the development of a European LNG terminal network with other partners involved in the project. NEFCO decided to invest €5m in supporting the company’s environmental strategy in the Baltic Sea region. Containerships plans to invest up to €200m in an effort to become the first European company to run its entire supply chain, both onshore and offshore, on LNG.

COSCO Shipping Holdings (CSH), the world’s fourth largest containership owner, has delayed the delivery of six 20,000 TEU capacity containerships on order from 2018 to 2019, as part of an effort to fend off another price war on Asia-Europe trades. CSH, the container shipping sector of China Cosco Shipping Group, has 17 ultra large containerships on order, 9 20,000 TEU ships at Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding, 4 19,000 TEU ships at Nantong Cosco KHI plus two 20,000 TEU vessels at Dalian Cosco KHI and likewise at Dalian Shipbuilding Industries. CMA CGM, Cosco Shipping’s partner in the Ocean Alliance, has already postponed the delivery of three ships until 2018 that were originally due this year.

Hansa Treuhand of Germany has reportedly been ordered by its bankers to send all or almost all of its 30 containerships to other managers, and may have to spin off some of its more attractive non-shipping businesses. This development could make Hansa Treuhand (HT) the latest victim in the ongoing German shipping crisis. HT founder Hermann Ebel declared himself personally insolvent in January. The HT group, whose fleet consists of around 30 containerships and 4 tankers among its 55 vessels, announced last September that it was seeking to restructure. Two weeks after the development with HT, Marenave Schiffahrts was reportedly being forced to part with its 13-strong fleet, under the terms of a liquidation agreement struck with most of the banks that finance the single- ship companies legally owning the vessels. The Marenave deal is built on a full release from financial liabilities and the proceeds will also provide enough funds for the company to finance its business as a going concern. Local sources indicate that Claus-Peter Offen and insurer DEVK could invest in the company as a result. Marenave Schiffahrts manages 13 vessels in all major segments, including 6 Panamax and Handymax product/chemical tankers, 2 1,200 TEU container vessels, 1 car carrier and 4 Supramax bulkers. The company had been engaged in debt restructuring talks since March 2016 and lost €11.6m during the first nine months of 2016.

Hapag-Lloyd and Dubai-based United Arab Shipping Company (UASC) have decided to delay the finalisation of their merger agreement by two months, to 31st May 2017 instead of 31st March, as the final preparations are taking longer than expected. Hapag Lloyd said that all merger clearances and authority approvals, as well as all necessary banking approvals from its side and substantially all banking approvals from UASC’s side, have been obtained. Irrespective of the actual closing date, THE Alliance started its operation as of 1st April including all vessels as planned.

Hanjin’s former 65,184gt/1998 built and 5,302 TEU capacity Hanjin Rome was sold on 1st March having been under arrest since 29th August. She departed Singapore on 2nd March bound for Chittagong and demolition. As of 7th March a total of 48 vessels with a capacity of 389,300 TEU from the former Hanjin fleet remained unemployed.

Hyundai Merchant Marine Co. Ltd. (HMM) has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to sell 10 of its container ships as part of an effort to raise funds. The vessels are set to be leased back to HMM upon completion of the sale.

Liverpool2 deepwater container terminal on the River Mersey received the largest ever containership to visit the Port of Liverpool in early March when the 75,015gt/2012 built and 6,552 TEU capacity HS Paris berthed at the facility (above). The arrival of this first post-Panamax vessel follows the opening of Phase 1 of Liverpool2 in November 2016. Peel Ports had embarked on a three-year project costing GBP400m to cater for the larger vessels passing through the widened Panama Canal. Previously, the Port of Liverpool’s existing Royal Seaforth Container Terminal could only accommodate vessels up to 4,500 TEU.

London Container Terminal (LCT) has secured a new fast transit reefer service covering the Pacific, New Zealand, Peru & US East Coast. The Meriden service is operated by eight 2,500 TEU capacity vessels, four of which have been specifically built for this reefer orientated service. The 24,905gt/2017 built Seatrade Blue made her maiden call at LCT on this service during the week beginning 27th March. This new scheduled service trims 9 days from the existing New Zealand-UK connections and improves the frequency of Northbound sailings from fortnightly to every 10 days.

The Meriden service, which offers both reefer and dry cargo shipping will serve Rotterdam, Dunkirk, Radicatel (Le Havre), Papeete, Noumea, Nelson, Napier, Tauranga, Callao, Paita, Philadelphia, Zeebrugge & Tilbury. LCT announced on 3rd April that it had secured a four year agreement with SCS Multiport to handle the newly upgraded ATS (Amsterdam Tilbury Service). The upgrade comes on the back of long term commitments from a number of cargo owners reflecting the success of the service. The three times a week shuttle between Amsterdam and Tilbury will see a 50% capacity upgrade with the arrival of the 7,545gt/2008 built Pengalia (above), a 700 TEU vessel that made her first call at LCT on 8th April.

Maersk Line signed a sale and purchase agreement related to the acquisition of German carrier Hamburg Südamerikanische Dampfschifffahrts-Gesellschaft KG (Hamburg Süd) on 14th March. The agreement is subject to board approvals, which are expected during the second quarter of 2017.

A.P. Møller-Mærsk A/S, the parent company of Maersk Line, expects to announce further details following the board approvals with the transaction being closed by the end of 2017.

With the acquisition of Hamburg Süd, Maersk Line will increase its global capacity share to approximately 18.6% (now 15.7%), its nominal capacity to around 3.8 million TEU (now 3.1 million TEU) while decreasing the average age of the combined fleet of more than 700 vessels to 8.7 years compared to Maersk Line’s present vessel age of 9.2 years. Maersk Line, Mediterranean Shipping Co. and Hyundai Merchant Marine formally agreed on 15th March to officially launch their strategic co-operation, which will include a series of slot exchanges and slot purchases between the three parties on key east-west trades. The partnership has a maturity of three years with an option to extend. Hong Kong-based Cido Shipping has sold the 28,340gt/2008 built and 3,000 TEU containerships Maersk Jubail and Maersk Jaipur to Turkey’s Arkas Denizcilik. The fast expanding Turkish line is believed to be paying $9.5m per unit for the sister ships.

Mitsui O.S.K. Lines announced on 28th March that the world’s largest containership, MOL Triumph was delivered from Samsung Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. MOL’s newest vessel, the first of a fleet of six 20,000 TEU class containerships for the company, was named MOL Triumph in a ceremony at SHI in South Korea on 15th March. At 400m in length with a 58.8m beam, the MOL Triumph is currently the world’s largest containership. With a capacity of 20,170 TEU, the vessel is the first 20,000 TEU-class containership deployed in The Alliance’s Asia to Europe trade via the FE2 service. The 210,678gt MOL Triumph set off on her maiden voyage from Xingang in April 2017 with calls at Dalian, Qingdao, Shanghai, Ningbo, Hong Kong, Yantian and Singapore. She then transitted the Suez Canal and continued on to Tangier, Southampton, Hamburg, Rotterdam and Le Havre before calling at Tangier and Jebel Ali on the way back to Asia. In line with the eco-sailing initiative of MOL, these new containerships are equipped with various highly advanced energy-saving technologies including low friction underwater paint, a high efficiency propeller and rudder, Savor Stator as a stream fin on the hull and an optimised fine hull form which together can further reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emissions per container moved by 25-30% when compared to 14,000 TEUclass containerships. Additionally, the vessel has also been designed with the retrofit option to convert to LNG fuel in view of the implementation of the International Maritime Organisation’s new regulation to limit SOx emission in marine fuels which will come into effect in 2020. MOL will take delivery of the second 20,000 TEUclass vessel in May 2017. Eventually there will be six of these 400m long and 192,672dwt containerships plying MOL’s existing trade routes. During the first week of April MOL and South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) received an Approval in Principle (AIP) for the future design of a series of four LNG-powered 20,000 TEU containerships.

Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) chartered 8 large containerships in February in readiness to join the Ocean Alliance on 1st April. The vessels include 3 new 11,000 TEU vessels plus the 114,144gt/2011 built and 10,114 TEU capacity duo Express Rome (formerly Hanjin Italy) and Express Athens (formerly Hanjin Greece) from Danaos Shipping. In addition, the 113,042gt/ 2015 built and 10,000 TEU capacity Seaspan Elbe, the 91,649gt/ 2006 built and 8,533 TEU capacity Lloyd Parsifal and the 91,038gt/ 2004 built and 8,189 TEU capacity Seamax Greenwich were all chartered to OOCL. The charter spree continued into March when Diana Containerships announced that it was reactivating its 73,934gt/2006 built and 6,541 TEU capacity container vessel Pucon upon securing a time charter deal for the vessel with OOCL.

Rickmers Maritime of Singapore has had its debt restructuring proposal rejected by German HSH Nordbank. The proposal is related to the restructuring of SGD 100m (approx. $71 million) notes due in May 2017. As a result, HSH Nordbank, Rickmers Maritime’s largest senior lender, advised Rickmers Trust Management (RTM) to formulate a revised restructuring proposal with a deadline of 14th April. RTM also said that there were no further discussions between the senior lender and its financial adviser, Ferrier Hodgson, adding that it expects that the restructuring of the notes is likely to be further delayed. However, the bank indicated that it may consider a material debt forgiveness of the existing loans if RTM is able to secure similar, substantial debt forgiveness from the noteholders and its other unsecured creditors and raise additional equity. If continuing efforts are unsuccessful, Rickmers Maritime might well be forced to wind up its business.

SAN Line looks set to be the name for the merger of the big three Japanese shipping groups following their plans to join forces as announced in 2016. Although unconfirmed, san means three in Japanese so San Line would be rather appropriate. With this in mind, the planned alliance of NYK, MOL, K Line, Hapag-Lloyd, and Yang Ming could result in the group being known as SHY. In late March the Competition Commission of Singapore gave the go-ahead to the proposed joint venture between Japan’s big three lines.

Yang Ming Marine Transport (YMMT) of Taiwan appears to be in financial difficulty following the announcement of its 2016 figures that revealed a flawed capital structure. The company’s book value of equity halved to TWD16bn in 2016 from almost TWD32bn in 2015. Overall, YMMT appears to have debts of $2.7bn and industry analysts are speculating that 2017 could be the make or break year.