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Yangtze ports test the water with longer container shipping routes

China's Jiangyin and Nanjing have become the latest Yangtze River ports to demonstrate ocean-going ambitions. Yesterday, Cosco Shipping Specialised Carriers, the Cosco group's multi-purpose shipping arm, launched a container shipping service from Jiangyin to Mexico's Manzanillo. More than 500 containers, loaded with machinery and finished goods, were placed on the general cargo ship, CSPC Jade. And last Friday, Cosco started a container service from Nanjing to North Africa, following 2024 and 2025 test voyages through the Northern Sea Route. Yangtze River ports have been pushing for deepsea container shipping routes to cut logistics costs and boost supply chain efficiency for local and hinterland enterprises, gaining a competitive edge in the regional economy. Traditionally, cargo from the Yangtze hinterland had to be barged to major ports like Shanghai or Ningbo, incurring additional port handling and short-haul transport fees, and consuming significant time. Areas in the lower reaches of the Yangtze host vital manufacturing hubs, with industries ranging from home appliances and electronics to automotive parts and photovoltaics - enterprises highly sensitive to logistics efficiency and costs. Direct routes eliminate the need for transhipment. The new Mexico route from Jiangyin, for example, takes 22 days, cutting around 15 days from traditional transhipment routes. Apparently aimed at providing a solution to Panama Canal bottlenecks, some of the cargo will be railed or trucked from Manzanillo into the US. In March, Cosco Shipping Specialised Carriers executed a one-off container shipping voyage from Jiangyin to Belgium's Antwerp port, using the 1,070 teu Tian Lu.

Gemini's second Asia-Med service back to Suez, as CMA tries to prop up rates

Gemini Cooperation partners Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd will next month reroute their Asia-Med Loop 1 to transit the Suez Canal and Red Sea in both directions. Known as AE12 by Maersk and SE1 by Hapag-Lloyd, the string will become the fourth mainline service the Gemini partners have returned to Suez routings, following the Asia-North Europe Loop4 (AE5 and NE4), Asia-Med Loop 2 (AE11 and SE2), and the India-Europe Loop (ME2 and IEX), which were rerouted via Suez this month. The Asia-Med Loop 1 will reroute to Suez with the departure of Hapag-Lloyd's 14,500 teu Umm Qarn from Tanjung Pelepas on 17 October, on its westbound headhaul voyage to Europe, its last Asia port call before the Red Sea. The same vessel will also undertake the service's first eastbound sailing via Suez, currently scheduled to depart Algeciras on 5 December. "Our initial transits through Bab al-Mandab have proceeded as planned and provided valuable operational experience for the upcoming SE1 passages," Hapag-Lloyd told customers. "Each transit remains subject to a thorough security review and will take place under naval protection, in close coordination with the relevant authorities and security partners. "This remains a gradual, service-specific approach, and does not constitute a strategic return of our full network to the Red Sea," the carrier added. The move will have big implications for the transit times and trade capacity offered to shippers and forwarders. By rerouting via Suez and eschewing the Cape of Good Hope route, the voyage is reduced by a full two weeks, from 98 days to 84, according to data from Xeneta's eeSea liner database. It also means the number of vessels required to maintain the service's weekly frequency drops from 14 to 12, allowing the carriers to redeploy capacity elsewhere in their networks. The move also means that half of Gemini's four Asia-Mediterranean services will have returned to Suez, while three Asia-North Europe services continue to sail round the Cape of Good Hope. Meanwhile, the increasing return of capacity on Asia-Med services to Suez - the Ocean Alliance and MSC have also made partial returns and Drewry noted that canal transits increased from 41 in Week 37 to 48 in Week 38 - has been partially blamed for the decline in Asia-Med spot rates. And today saw the first move by a carrier to prop up freight rates: CMA CGM announcing a new FAK (freight all kinds) rate of $4,600 per 40ft to the west Mediterranean and $4,900 to the east Mediterranean, to be implemented on 19 October. That represents a price hike of more than $1,000 per 40ft on Drewry's World Container Index's current Shanghai-Genoa rate, which stands at $3,485 per 40ft.

Box shipping reliability the worst since 2022 - 'a new normal', says DP World

Global container shipping reliability is at its lowest level for four years, as the congestion in Asia continues to disrupt liner operations. According to Sea-Intelligence, schedule reliability fell by 5.9 percentage points month on month in August, to 49.9%, marking the second consecutive monthly decline. The analyst said: "In the backdrop of severe port congestion in Asia, global schedule has declined sharply month on month for the second consecutive month... This is the lowest point since September 2022." The deterioration was reflected in vessel delays: the average for late-arriving ships increased 0.6 days, month on month, to 6.81 days - the highest since March 2022, and 1.92 days higher than at this time last year. Among the 13 largest carriers tracked by Sea-Intelligence, Maersk recorded the best schedule reliability last month, with 67.3% on-time arrivals, followed by Hapag-Lloyd's 61.5%. MSC and CMA CGM recorded reliability of 55.2% and 50.6%, respectively, while Wan Hai was the least-reliable of the group, at just 23.2%. No top-13 carrier improved its reliability over the month. ONE recorded the smallest decline, 3.5 percentage points, while PIL suffered the largest decline, of 10.1 points. Year on year, all 13 carriers recorded proved less reliable. Maersk's decline of 8.9 percentage points was the smallest, while PIL's 31.1 point fall was the largest - one of 12 carriers to record a double-digit year-on-year decline. The deterioration was particularly pronounced across the major east-west trades. Based on rolling July/August data, reliability on the Asia-North America west coast route fell 8.8 percentage points, to 60.6%, while Asia-North America east coast fell 9.6 points, to 61.7%. Asia-North Europe schedule reliability declined 2.4 points, to 62.3%, while Asia-Mediterranean fell 3.7 points, to 61.8%. Only three of 34 tradelanes saw any month-on-month improvement in reliability - Oceania-North America posted the largest gain, up 8.4 points to 97.6%, while Asia-East Coast South America suffered the largest decline, down 16.6 points to 56.4%. Across the east-west shipping alliances, average reliability fell 7.4 points to 57.2%. Gemini remained the most reliable, at 77.8%, followed the Ocean Alliance, at 48.3%, and the Premier Alliance. at 43.2%. Standalone carrier MSC was at 70.1%. Sea-Intelligence's figures come as DP World warned that disruption was becoming a structural feature of global trade rather than a series of isolated events. Its latest white paper notes: "Geopolitical tensions, evolving trade policies, climate-related disruption, and shifting manufacturing footprints are reshaping how cargo moves around the world. These are not isolated challenges. Together, they represent a structural shift in the way global trade is organised." The operator highlighted the Red Sea crisis as an example of how quickly shipping networks could be reshaped, noting that traffic through the Suez Canal last year fell to around half its 2024 level, while vessel capacity re-routing around the Cape of Good Hope increased 89%. "Longer journeys increased transit times, costs and emissions, while reducing schedule reliability," DP World said.