Maersk slows ECUBEX, adds Bremerhaven

   The shipping company Maersk Line has added a call at Germany’s Bremerhaven and a seventh vessel to its weekly ECUBEX service between St. Petersburg, Russia, and the west coast of South America.
   Round voyage time on the average 2,582-TEU capacity loop has increased from 42 days to 49 days.
   The revised rotation of ECUBEX is St. Petersburg, Bremerhaven, Moin Bay (Costa Rica), Guayaquil, Balboa, and St. Petersburg.
   Voyage times southbound to Central America and west coast South America from Europe have increased by about seven days. The transit between St. Petersburg and Moin Bay is now 22 days.
   The new call at Bremerhaven is Maersk’s only direct connection from the port to Guayaquil, or any port on the west coast of South America for that matter. The carrier’s Europe-to-Central America CRX loop, however, calls Moin Bay to and from Bremerhaven, and its Europe-to-Central America and west coast South America Andean 1 service calls Guayaquil southbound, as well as at Balboa in both directions to and from Rotterdam, Tilbury, Hamburg, and Antwerp.
   Numerous Maersk services call at Balboa, situated near the Pacific end of the Panama Canal. They converge inwards from Asia, Oceania, and the west coasts of North, Central and South America. On its northbound leg, ECUBEX offers them all a non-stop connection, with a15-day transit, exclusively to St Petersburg. — ComPair Data, Ben Meyer