Lines merge Asia/Australia-NZ services

Lines merge Asia/Australia-NZ services    Ocean carriers Hamburg S'd, COSCO, MOL and NYK Line said they are merging two loops between Asia and Oceania.
   The German carrier said its ANZL service, on which Hapag-Lloyd is a slot charterer) will be folded into a service with COSCO and the Japanese lines (with Maersk Line a slot charterer on their service). The name of the COSCO/MOL/NYK loop to be merged was not given, but ComPair Data shows two services run cooperatively among those carriers: loops 1 and 2 of the NZJ service.
   The merged loop will be a weekly fixed-day service with a rotation of Auckland, New Plymouth, Nelson (fortnightly), Wellington (fortnightly), Lyttelton, Napier, Tauranga, Tokyo, Kobe, Busan, Shanghai, Yantian, Hong Kong, Brisbane and Auckland.
   The service will be operated with six vessels of 3,000 to 3,500 TEUs, with Hamburg S'd and COSCO providing two each and MOL and NYK one each.
   'To take account of customer demand for more reefer capacity — especially from New Zealand to North East Asia — all six vessels feature 500 reefer plugs,' the lines said. 'Additionally, the partners of the new consortium have committed to a peak-season extra-loader program which will ensure that all refrigerated trade volumes will be adequately accommodated. This extra loader program will complement the regular weekly product and provide a service between New Zealand and the important North East Asian reefer markets.'