Evergreen joins CKYH alliance

   Evergreen Line will join with members of the CKYH alliance — COSCO, “K” Line, Yang Ming and Hanjin — in operating container services to the United States East Coast.
   It’s the latest mega-alliance among container carriers planning to start service to the United States. A vote last month by the Federal Maritime Commission will allow the planned P3 Network of Maersk, MSC and CMA CGM to operate in the U.S. if other regulators around the world also give their blessing. And, unless the FMC tries to block it, the G6 alliance of APL, Hapag-Lloyd, Hyundai, MOL, NYK and OOCL will be able to begin operations to the U.S. West Coast effective Friday. (The G6 is already operating on trades to the U.S. East Coast.)
   In February, the five container carriers said that they would establish the CKYHE alliance to be operational only on the trades between Asia and Europe, including the Mediterranean. At the TPM 2014 conference in Long Beach, Calif., in early March, Howard Finkel, executive vice president of COSCO, mentioned that the alliance might be extended to the East Coast of the U.S.
   Now, Evergreen, along with COSCO and Hanjin, has filed a vessel-sharing agreement with the Federal Maritime Commission saying they will cooperate on services between the Asia and the U.S. Atlantic Coast. The agreement is CHE Vessel Sharing Agreement, FMC No. 012256 and can be viewed on the FMC website.
   The agreement mentions two services — a transPanama string and another via the Suez Canal. But, sources said two transSuez services in addition to the transPanama service will be operated.

• The transPanama service would connect ports in China (including Hong Kong) and Japan to the U.S. East Coast. Today, that service is called the AWC-All Water East Coast Service by Hanjin and the AWE2 by COSCO with the following rotation: Qingdao, Shanghai, Ningbo, Yokohama, Panama, New York, Boston, Norfolk, Panama and Qingdao. According to the agreement filed with the FMC, it will use 10 vessels, with eight from COSCO, one from Hanjin and one from Evergreen, each with approximate loadable capacity of 4,250 TEUs. The call to Boston would be new for Evergreen.
• The transSuez service mentioned in the FMC agreement would specifically connect ports in China (including Hong Kong), Taiwan, Singapore and Sri Lanka to the Atlantic Coast of the United States. It would use three vessels from COSCO, three from Hanjin and five from Evergreen, each with an approximate loadable capacity of 8,500 TEUs. But, the agreement adds that, “The total deployment may be changed to between five and 30 vessels, the TEU capacities of these vessels may be changed by up to 100 percent, and the ports served (so long as within the trade) and service name may be changed, all without amendment of this agreement.”

   While the latest agreement filed with the FMC is between Evergreen, COSCO and Hanjin, the agreement also said they may “discuss and agree on operational matters of common interest with any party to the existing CKYH Worldwide Slot Allocation and Sailing Agreement on file with the FMC.”
   Evergreen and CYKH will continue to operate other Asia-U.S. East Coast services that are not part of the five-way alliance.
   Meanwhile, Evergreen Marine Corp. and subsidiaries have reported a consolidated loss for 2013 of 2.047 billion Taiwan New Dollars (TWD) ($67.4 million) compared with a loss of 211.7 million TWD in 2012. The amount of the loss attributable to owners of the parent is 1.497 billion TWD for 2013, compared with a profit of 312.5 million TWD in 2012.
   Revenue was 139.2 billion TWD in 2013 compared with revenue of 141 billion TWD in 2012.