Alliances working it out.

 With the dissolution of THE Alliance earlier this year, shipping companies are still settling in to their new configurations. Hapag-Lloyd left THE Alliance and formed a new alliance with Maersk called Gemini Cooperation. 

The remaining partners in THE Alliance - namely ONE, Yang Ming and HMM have formed the Premier Alliance which necessarily has cut back some of the former services. 

All this has not been good news for the Port of Halifax.

Hapag-Lloyd's close ties with the former Canadian Pacific Railway (now Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd - known as CPKC) mean that the Gemini Cooperation has concentrated its business on the Port of Saint John, New Brunswick which is served, through allies, by CPKC. Halifax is served by rival CN Rail only.

Some Hapag-Lloyd traffic will continue to come through Halifax by means of a slot sharing agreement with ZIM.

Premier Alliance - much reduced by the loss of Hapag-Lloyd, has dropped Halifax and Saint John from its weekly AL5 service and shifted from Port Everglades to Miami - a major hit for this port.

A temporary arrangement has apparently been reached between the Premier Alliance and the Ocean Alliance (CMA CGM, COSCO, Evergreen and OOCL) to share some transatlantic cargo on Ocean's AT3 service. That rotation is Southampton, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Bremerhaven, Halifax, Veracruz, Altamira, Houston, New Orleans, and Southampton. The first ship on that run arrived in Halifax today, May 3, westbound from Bremerhaven.

The CMA CGM Molière berthed at PSA Atlantic Hub this morning and sailed this evening. The old AL5 used to call at PSA Fairview Cove, but using slightly smaller ships

 

The CMA CGM Molière was built in 2009 by Sungdong Shipbuilding and Marine Enginering in Tongyeong. It is a 72,884 gt, 88,298 dwt ship with a capacity of 6570 TEU. Owners are listed as the opaquely named Box Carrier (No.1) Corp with management by Danaos Shipping Co Ltd of Piraeus and registered in Malta.
 

The Premier Alliance now serves Halifax with only the EC3 service (China to US east coast via Panama) using ONE's M class 13,870 TEU and Bird class 14,000 TEU ships. Its schedule shows only Savannah, Norfolk and Charleston on this coast, so how long they continue to serve Halifax is anyone's guess as they have cancelled at least two transPacific services already.

With the current upheaval in world trade there may be more changes to come, and almost certainly schedule adjustments, cancellations and "blank sailings".

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