Daily Maersk News

Maersk and MSC have just announced a mega vessel sharing agreement that will replace their failed P3 alliance early next year. It will be smaller, and compare well in size with the G6 and CKYH alliances – but what about CMA CGM? Maersk and MSC have taken on board China’s objections to the P3 alliance by coming up with a new vessel sharing arrangement called 2M that they hope will be agreed by all regulatory authorities before the beginning of next year. Out has gone CMA CGM, in order to bring the agreement’s market share down to more acceptable levels, and in has come a much simpler joint co-ordination committee to monitor the carriers’ network on a daily basis.

Maersk Line is extending its total container ship transportation time promise to six more routes: from Jakarta (Indonesia) or Laem Chabang (Thailand). The routes are to Bremerhaven (Germany), Rotterdam (The Netherlands) or Felixstowe (UK). (Bookings for this service will commence 8th October 2012). With gate-in any day of the week and two weekly cut-offs, Maersk Line are promising to transport goods on these routes in 31 days. The clock starts at cut-off and stops when goods are available at the final container yard. The promise is absolute, backed with the same monetary guarantees offered on Daily Maersk. It has been a year since Maersk Line introduced Daily Maersk.

42% of Maersk Line’s customers on the flagship “Daily Maersk” product between Asia and Northern Europe report direct savings on logistics costs. In 2011, Maersk Line launched Daily Maersk, providing customers with a ‘conveyor belt’ service between selected ports in Asia and Northern Europe. One year later, customers are appreciating the benefits. Absolute reliability allows them to optimise their transportation chain. In a recent survey of 175 customers, 42% responded that they had saved money on logistics costs as a direct result of using Daily Maersk. “Daily Maersk has definitely helped us improve efficiency and speed when it comes to planning and scheduling of our shipments,” says a representative from Inter Globe Services. Radville Farms Ltd.

The report, a joint effort between ecommerce network provider INTTRA and container shipping analyst SeaIntel, examined the performance of the top 20 container lines in schedule reliability. In the past year, Maersk Line has been the No.1 carrier in eight of the months and No.2 for four. The report also highlights, among others, the effect of Daily Maersk on Maersk Line's June reliability, a month when many carriers saw reliability dip. "Maersk Line reached a 98% on time performance to North Europe in June…

The recent successful implementation of significant rate restoration initiatives by carriers in the core east-west trade lanes means that most are now operating above break-even. Carriers took sufficient capacity out in the winter months to ensure that recently re-activated services have not caused too much damage to the supply/demand balance and load factors on the eastbound transpacific remain strong. However, with the worsening situation in Europe, we do not foresee a strong peak season this year and carriers will experience some rate erosion during the summer months. Evergreen’s decision to launch another weekly loop this month is not a positive and the Asia-Europe trade is most at risk because of the need to fill more 12,000+ teu ships every week.

'Daily Maersk', the revolutionary service of Maersk Line that promises absolute reliability on the Asia-North Europe trade, has now been running for six months serving over 900 customers and shipping more than 93,500 containers. The service has delivered an average reliability of 97 percent over the last six months. More recently, reliability has exceeded 99 percent, Maersk Line said. “We are extremely pleased to see the on-time delivery rate for Daily Maersk improving month by month. We are truly delivering on our promise of absolute reliability,” says Ole Pradsgaard, Daily Maersk Project leader. Maersk Line’s unique product offers daily cut-off times for cargo loading (rather than weekly cut-offs); providing great flexibility for customers.

Drewry’s latest quarterly Container Forecaster highlights that 2012 will be another challenging year for liner operators. With question marks over the strength of global demand, delivery of big ships will continue to be a problem and carriers’ future lay-up strategies will dictate if they make money or not. London, UK, 4th January 2012 – Carriers will want to forget 2011 quickly. Based on 3Q11 financials and year-end industry dynamics, we forecast that the industry could lose as much as $5.2 billion, despite a projected global container growth of 6.5%. Overcapacity, poor headhaul growth on the major east-west routes and the continued fight for market share amongst the lead players ensured that spot rates eroded by more than 50% on the key headhaul routes by the end of 2011.