2M: The 2M carriers Maersk Line and Mediterranean Shipping Co. have released their full service rotations for their proposed co-operation. The two carriers plan to operate six services on the Asia-north Europe trade lane, five between Asia and the Mediterranean, three from North America to north Europe, two from North America to the Mediterranean, four from Asia to the North American west coast and two between Asia and the North American east coast. Both services to the North American east coast from Asia transit the Suez Canal, not the Panama Canal. The proposed network features a new direct connection from Shanghai to the Black Sea and a new direct service from Le Havre and Gothenburg to ports in Japan. On 9th October the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) announced that it will allow the 2M Vessel Sharing Agreement (VSA) to come into effect. The U.S.A was the only remaining jurisdiction where the VSA had to obtain approval. Maersk Line and MSC can now implement the VSA as planned from January 2015.

Containerships, a Finnish shipping company, has ordered two additional dual-fuel engine container ships from the Yangzhou Guoyu Shipyard in China. The company announced earlier this year an order of two similar vessels and says it will be the first shortsea container operator in Europe to run ships on LNG. The additional ships will be delivered during 2017 with the already announced duo of newbuilds arriving in 2016. All four will use liquefied natural gas (LNG), but will also be able to burn conventional marine diesel oil/heavy fuel.

COSCO has taken delivery of the 153,666gt/13,386 TEU Cosco Denmark as the last of eight Cosco Oceania series vessels ordered in May 2008. Delivery had been delayed due to the economic downturn. Cosco Holdings has also placed an order for the construction of five giant 14,500 TEU container ships to be constructed by China Shipbuilding Trading and Changxing Shipbuilding for an aggregate sum of USD 618 million. The five newbuildings are expected to be delivered throughout 2017 and 2018. The fleet renewal programme continued apace with the order of six 81,600dwt bulk carriers at Chengxi Shipyard and four 208,000dwt newbuildings at Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding through a wholly owned subsidiary, for a total of $420.5m. The ships will be delivered through 2017.

Hamburg Süd christened the new 333.20m long, 9,600 TEU and 118,938gt Cap San Antonio in Le Havre on 26th September at the Cruise Terminal. The port of Le Havre, which joined with the ports of Rouen and Paris to form the HAROPA network in 2012, is an important transhipment centre for Hamburg Süd. From here, the Cap San Antonio was bound for Santos, Brazil having been deployed on the Europe and South America East Coast circuit.

K Line of Japan has ordered a second batch of five 13,870-TEU ships from the Imabari shipbuilding group for delivery in spring and summer 2018. The vessels add to the five similar units ordered in March 2013 with the same shipbuilder for delivery in 2015. The 10 ships, to be built at Imabari Hiroshima, will be the first ships of more than 10,000 TEU built in Japan.

Maersk Line looks set to spend around $3 billion a year from 2015-19 on new ships to reinforce its position as the world’s biggest container shipping company. The current order book is not sufficient to grow with the market and the existing fleet totals 500 vessels. Maersk has already ruled out 18,000teu ships as the race for bigger and bigger containerships continues. Newbuilds will be built with either dual-fuel gas engines or exhaust gas scrubbers but the latter is not favoured. The company has also been praised by the French authorities upon completion of the exercise to locate over 500 containers lost overboard from the Svendborg Maersk in February 2014. Only ten were retrieved when still afloat, others were washed up but most sank. Maersk was charged with the task of scanning the ocean floor in order to update sea charts to allow fishermen to avoid the sunken boxes with a deadline of autumn 2014. For the purpose of the operation, Maersk chartered the Borda, a sonar search vessel from Service Hydrographique et Oceanographique de la Marine, a French public body.

The Ocean Three Alliance is planning to save $1 billion on bunker costs via slow steaming. The alliance of CMA CGM, China Shipping Container Lines Co.and United Arab Shipping Co. (UASC) will help push the industry toward the use of larger, more efficient ships, particularly on Asia-Europe routes and make competition on container lines increasingly challenging.

OOCL has announced that services from Europe to and from the US east coast and Gulf of Mexico will be subject to a $65 per teu surcharge due to the new ECAs from 1st January. Between Europe and the west coast there is an additional $110 per teu and to and from Canada the charge will be $75 per teu.

United Arab Shipping Company (UASC) and Hamburg Süd signed a global co-operation agreement of their own during late September. This co-operation will enable Hamburg Süd and UASC to complement each other’s core services and networks, offering both lines’ customers a more comprehensive service. Initially, Hamburg Süd and UASC have agreed to co-operate on several of their respective lines. Hamburg Süd will enter the Asia-North Europe and Asia-US trades in December 2014 and January 2015, respectively, while UASC will enter the Europe-South America East Coast and Asia-South America East Coast trades effective from mid-2015. From start-up, the co-operation will be in the form of slot exchanges with vessel deployment opportunities being explored in due course.