2M: The intended vessel-sharing agreement between Maersk Line and Mediterranean Shipping Co. cleared a major hurdle in early October with the U.S.A’s Federal Maritime Commission giving the go-ahead after a 45- day review. This has enabled 2M to become a lawful entity in the US trades.

G6: The G6 Alliance was badly affected in the second half of October when the Los Angeles and Long Beach container terminals in the U.S.A experienced severe congestion. For example, on 27th October nine containerships were among the 13 vessels waiting at anchor outside the ports including the 4,890 teu Tokyo Express, 4,616 teu Kobe Express, the 2,664 teu NYK Maria, the 6,492 teu NYK Argus, the 4,888 teu NYK Diana, the 4,890 teu APL Egypt, the 9,415 teu CMA CGM Rigoletto, the 1,819 teu Cap Portland and the 3,600 teu Cap Cleveland. Most of those held were operated by the G6 alliance.

APL Logisitics is the subject of a potential sales process by Neptune Orient. Options include an acquisition or the forming of a strategic alliance involving CJ Korea Express. Neptune Orient was considering embarking upon the sale of APL Logistics as early as the end of October 2014 with a price tag of around $1 billion placed on it. Neptune Orient, Southeast Asia’s biggest container line, is forecast to post a fourth straight annual loss in 2014 as slowing economic growth and excess capacity affects shipping rates. In the past two years, the Singaporebased company has sold its main headquarters and some vessels to cut costs. The company reported a loss of $152 million in the first half of 2014 compared with a profit a year earlier. APL Logistics posted $32 million in core earnings while the container shipping business had a loss of $112 million.

The CMA CGM Group announced that the maiden voyage of the 95,366gt CMA CGM ELBE began on 14th October 2014 in Dalian (China). The 9400 TEU and 300m long CMA CGM Elbe is the second of a series of 28 vessels from 9400 TEUs to 10900 TEUs, which will be delivered from now to the third quarter of 2016. In June the first vessel of this series, the CMA CGM Danube, was delivered. Each vessel of this one-of-a-kind series will be named after a famous river of the world. The CMA CGM Elbe will serve the Bosphorus Express service between Asia, Turkey and the Black Sea. A further ten or more CMA CGM ships are to get “nose jobs” with the retrofitting of ships with bulbous bows optimized for current operating speeds. The container shipping giant has already carried out similar work on 15 ships and all ships entering its fleet this year have been built with bulbous bows suited for current speeds of 16-18 knots. The bow optimisations are part of an environmental and ship efficiency program that has seen the CMA CGM Group reduce per kilometre CO2/TEU emissions by 40% since 2005.

Hyundai Merchant Marine’s 52,581gt/2007 built container vessel Hyundai Grace rescued three survivors from a yacht, the Hales Revenge, sinking in the Pacific. The yacht was headed for Seattle from Hawaii and the Hyundai Grace was 259km away from the casualties when the alarm was raised. The crew members of the ship rescued three survivors and rendered first aid assistance before disembarking them at the Port of Balboa, Panama, on 5th November.

Hapag-Lloyd announced on 21st October that the G6 Alliance has temporarily suspended the Central China (CC2) service between Asia and the U.S. West Coast in response to seasonal changes in market demand. The last sailing for CC2 was the 66,462gt/2007 built OOCL Italy departing from Shanghai on 31st October. All ports served by CC2 will be covered by other G6 Alliance services. On 4th November the Brazilian merger authority unconditionally approved the transaction between Compañía Sud Americana de Vapores (CSAV) and Hapag-Lloyd. Among others, the Department of Justice of the United States, the EU and Chile have already cleared the planned transaction. Approvals of a few jurisdictions are still pending. The transaction will make Hapag-Lloyd the fourth largest container shipping company in the world, with some 200 vessels, an annual transport volume of 7.5 million TEU and a combined turnover of around 9 billion Euro. On 25th October history was made at DP World Southampton when four Hapag-Lloyd fleet mates occupied each of its deep-sea berths at the same time. This was the first time in the terminal’s history that four ships from the same shipping line berthed together. During the visit, DP World Southampton, recently crowned Port Operator of the Year, handled nearly 10,000 containers from the four vessels (above). Three of the four Hapag-Lloyd vessels were the new generation ultra large container ships, each with nominal capacity of more than 13,000 TEU. The 142,295gt/2014 built Ludwigshafen Express, 142,295gt/2012 built New York Express and 53,815gt/1993 built Stuttgart Express were all making their first port of call on a rotation in Europe and later went on to call at Le Havre and Antwerp. The 142,295/2013 built Hong Kong Express was making her last call of her European rotation before sailing to Singapore. Hapag-Lloyd has been a customer of DP World Southampton since the terminal first opened in the 1970s.

Maersk Line announced in mid-October that it planned to raise freight rates sharply on main routes from ports in Asia to ports in northern Europe with effect from 1st November. Rates for twenty foot equivalent unit containers will rise by $900. Prior to this TEU rates from Asia to Europe stood at $705, an amount widely seen as a loss-making level. The world’s third biggest container shipping company, French CMA CGM, also announced its intention to increase freight rates on routes from Asia to North European ports by $850 per TEU.

Oldenburg-Portugiesische Dampfschiffs- Rhederei (OPDR) announced on 20th October plans to extend its agreement with London Container Terminal (LCT) Tilbury for the operation of OPDR’s new express liner service from Agadir, Morocco calling at the Port of Tilbury. LCT currently handles over 200 calls per annum for OPDR services on their routes between the Iberian Peninsula including the Canary Islands, North Africa and the UK, as announced in November 2013. The new express service is especially designed for perishable cargo, such as tomatoes and citrus fruits, from Agadir to the UK market.

WEC Lines also enhanced its Portugal- Tilbury service from 27th October with a second call at Leixões in Portugal before calling at the Port of Tilbury as part of their SPM2 rotation. This schedule change halves the current eight day transit time, calling at the ports of Tilbury, Antwerp, Vigo, Leixões, Sines and Lisbon, followed by a second loading call at Leixões.

Seaspan is looking at 18,000-20,000 TEU containerships for their fleet. The company’s revenue increased by 7.8% to $185.9 million and 4.5% to $527.7 million for the three and nine months ended 30th September, respectively, over the same periods for 2013. These increases were due primarily to the delivery of four 10,000 TEU vessels in 2014, the delivery of two 4,600 TEU secondhand vessels in mid-2013 and a decrease in unscheduled off-hire. The company has 28 vessels under construction at three shipyards with six 10,000 TEU and eight 14,000 TEU newbuildings being delivered between November 2014 and the end of 2016. The company also has options to build six 10,000 TEU or 14,000 TEU ships at Yangzijiang Shipbuilding.

Mitsui OSK Lines has confirmed it is in advanced talks to charter containerships of 18,000 TEU or larger from Seaspan or Japanese lessors as part of the G6 alliance’s drive to reduce unit cost to compete with other alliances. Among container alliances, the group of MOL, Hapag-Lloyd, NYK Line, OOCL, APL and Hyundai Merchant Marine has the smallest average vessel size, so some member lines have been talks about larger containerships for months. Orders for containerships surpassed the one million TEU mark in 2014, with 145 units contracted during the first 10 months. The overall orderbook currently stands at 3.5 million TEU, representing 19.3% of the existing fleet, which totals 18.2 million TEU.