CMA CGM, China Shipping Container Lines (CSCL) and United Arab Shipping Company (UASC) have agreed to consolidate operations in the Asia-Middle East market and replace two existing services with one joint service operated by all three.
The new service called CIMEX 1 will reduce operating costs for the three shipping groups, the French carrier CMA CGM said in a January 31, 2012 statement. “Moreover, as this new service is replacing two existing services on the market, it will not bring any addition of capacity,” it added.
The CIMEX 1 will deploy seven vessels of capacities ranging from 12,500 to 14,400 TEUs. Of these, one vessel of 12,500-TEU capacity will be from CMA CGM, three 14,400-TEU vessels will come from CSCL, and three 13,000-TEU ships will be provided by UASC.
CIMEX 1 will be in effect from February 2 with the CMA CGM Don Carlos sailing from Tianjin.
It replaces the CIMEX/AMA service that uses 8,500-TEU vessels from CMA CGM and CSCL, and the AGX 1 service with 3,600-TEU vessels run by UASC.
The rotation will be Tianjin, Dalian, Pusan, Shanghai (Yangshan Terminal), Ningbo, Shekou, Port Klang, Khorfakkan, Jebel Ali, Port Klang, Nansha, Tianjin.
Under the new loop, Jebel Ali, the first market of the region, will be directly called and Khorfakkan hub (U.A.E) will be used as an entry point to feed all the Gulf’s destinations via the CMA CGM’s feeder network.
“The new CIMEX 1 marks an important step in the evolution of the worldwide maritime transport as it is the first time that vessels of such a capacity (14,000 teus) are employed on a market other than Asia-Europe. This opens new perspectives of employment for this type of big vessels,” the Marseille-based box carrier said.
