Taiwan's Wan Hai Lines will replace a service using its own tonnage in the transpacific by taking slots on two of Maersk Line's weekly Asia/U.S. West Coast services, namely the TP5 and TP8 loops.
The TP5 service uses five ships of about 4,100 TEUs on a full port rotation of Yokohama, Kobe, Busan, Shanghai, Ningbo, Los Angeles, Oakland, Dutch Harbor and back to Yokohama.
Wan Hai will only take space on the TP5 between Shanghai, Ningbo, Los Angeles and Oakland. Maersk's sister company Safmarine Container Lines also has space on the service.
The TP8 runs with five ships of just under 2,200 TEUs and calls Dalian, Xingang, Qingdao, Busan, Kwangyang, Nagoya, Yokohama, Los Angeles and Dalian. Wan Hai will omit Kwangyang, Nagoya and Yokohama. Safmarine and Evergreen Line take slots.
The arrangement with Maersk will allow Wan Hai to transfer a portion of its cargo from the Mid-China Transpacific (MTP) service that was jointly operated alongside CSAV Norasia and Sinotrans Container Lines but which is understood to be ending soon.
Sinotrans has already switched its single vessel from the MTP, the 2,742-TEU Sinotrans Tianjin, onto the Central China-Long Beach Express (CLX) of COSCO and Hanjin Shipping while both Wan Hai and CSAV Norasia's schedules for the MTP do not go beyond December.
Wan Hai continues to operate its joint China Transpacific (CTP) loop with Pacific International Lines. |
