COSCO, Hanjin and UASC switch to Maersk

   The liner shipping companies COSCO, Hanjin Shipping, United Arab Shipping Company and CCNI have ended their joint ESE/SAM 1 service between North Europe and the East Coast South America which was launched in March 2011.
   COSCO and Hanjin have begun taking slots on Maersk Line’s weekly Samba service from Europe and the Mediterranean to ECSA.
   UASC has not done so, but has begun taking slots on Maersk’s Rumba service from ECSA to the Middle East instead. The final ESE/SAM 1 departure is Isn Asakir from Hamburg on Jan 29.
   Maersk has concurrently slowed its Samba service, increasing round voyage time from 49 days to 56 days and adjusting its rotation. Calls have been added at Rio Grande and Porto Itapoa, togeher with a call northbound at the Maersk/(Hanjin) regional hub at Algeciras. A northbound call at Pecem has been dropped. The loop will skip one sailing position commencing on Feb 22 in Tilbury and in late February will add a call, last port out, in Antwerp.
   The revised port rotation will then be Tilbury, Rotterdam, Bremerhaven, Antwerp, Algeciras, Santos, Paranagua, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Rio Grande, Porto Itapoa, Santos, Algeciras, and Tilbury.  
   Transit times northbound to Europe and the Mediterranean from East Coast South America on the Samba have increased by about seven days, now taking 23 days between Buenos Aires and Tilbury. The service is operated with five Maersk vessels and two from Maersk subsidiary Safmarine, with an average capacity of 3,084 TEUs.
   Porto Itapoa began operating in June 2011 and Samba provides Maersk’s only direct call to the port from Europe, though the carrier does call there to/from Asia on its ASIA 1/ASAS 1 loop, jointly operated with Hamburg Süd. Maersk and Safmarine also take slots on MSC’s Europe-ECSA1 service which, like Samba, connects Antwerp, Rotterdam, Hamburg, and Bemerhaven with Santos, Montevideo, Buenos Aires, and Rio Grande.
   Meanwhile it appears that rather than taking slots on Samba, UASC has begun taking slots on Maersk’s long Rumba service which runs between ECSA and the West Mediterranean, including Algeciras, through to the Middle East and India.
   It is not known from their schedules whether or not CCNI and UASC have left the North Europe-ECSA trade entirely. — ComPair Data, Ben Meyer and Francis Phillips