COSCO starts Shanghai/Long Beach shuttle

COSCO starts Shanghai/Long Beach shuttle    COSCO Container Lines will start a weekly transpacific shuttle service Thursday calling at only two ports — Shanghai and Long Beach.
   The “CLX” service will differ from virtually all other transpacific services, which generally call four or more ports. The service will have a round-voyage rotation of just 28 days, as compared to 35 or 42 days for most multiport transpacific loops.
   Four 1,700-TEU ships to be used in the service will come from COSCO’s “China Southeast-CES” service, which is ending. The change represents a saving of one ship, as the “CES” service had used five ships.
   The “CES” service also made calls at Oakland, Ningbo and Yokohama westbound. It is not known whether “K” Line and Hanjin Shipping, which had taken space on the “CES” service, will take slots on the new “CLX” service.
   The vessel “Ling Yun He” starts the “CLX” service when it is due to depart from Shanghai Thursday. The transit time from Shanghai to Long Beach is 12 days, while the transit from Long Beach to Shanghai is 14 days.
   Details of the new service are posted on ComPair Data, the global liner-shipping database at https://www.compairdata.com.
   In December, U.S. Lines started a similar transpacific shuttle service that calls at Shekou, Hong Kong and Long Beach, and employs five containerships.