Mediterranean Shipping Company (Mediterranean Shipping Co.) is adding another ship for container service between the east coast of South America and the U.S. Gulf Coast. Along with additional vessels, all vessels in service will also begin to decelerate to maintain weekly effective capacity at current levels.
MSC said it will add the 6900 TEU Athens Glory on SAEC Line 1 in the Gulf as its eighth vessel. In addition, the service will also reduce the speed of all ships, increase the rotation time from 32 days to 56 days, and use slow sailing, which will also reduce emissions.
This year, MSC has absorbed more vessels into its fleet without increasing weekly capacity. "Regardless of the operational changes, capacity will not be affected," MSC said in a statement.
In October last year, CMA CGM restored the north-south route from a bi-weekly schedule to weekly, while adding another route from South America to the US Gulf.
The U. S.-West terminal labor negotiations have been pending for nearly a year. This uncertainty has promoted the continued transfer of the share of imported containers in the United States, and the ports of the United States and the U.S. Gulf have benefited from this. In addition, the Port of Mobile is adding calls to service along the Latin America-Mexico coast as part of a renewed focus by ocean carriers on north-south trade routes.
from the Gulf to SAEC Line 1, which also provides locations for UCLA services under the Sealand brand Maersk, will join the move in the first call of the Athens Glorian on May 26. The service's rotation removed the Brazilian Port of Suape but called the Port of Houston. In addition to calls at other major Brazilian ports, the Gulf to SAEC line calls at Colombia and Mexico.
2022 import growth
As ocean carriers resume services that have been cut or otherwise reduced by widespread port congestion and a trans-Pacific cargo surge, there could be more cargo growth.
As the region added new ship services, Mobile and other Gulf Coast ports saw strong import growth last year, and more shippers are looking to add new import gateways off the West Coast.
Mediterranean Line and Maersk ranked first and second in the 2022 JOC Gulf Coast Top 10 Importing Ship Companies, and their own independent line services added additional capacity, enabling them to handle 40 percent of container cargo entering Gulf Coast ports, with MSC's imports to the region up 17.7 percent, while Maersk's year-over-year growth was 10.4 percent.
According to the PIERS data report, mobile's total imports in 2022 increased by 9.1 percent year-on-year to 283,618 TEUs. Last year, total Gulf Coast imports rose 13.9 percent to 2.6 million TEU.
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