Port of Oakland expects to benefit from new alliances

The port said it expects to benefit from the new ocean carrier alliances that launched this month, along with a new non-alliance transpacific service.    The Port of Oakland expects to benefit from the new alliance groupings that launched this month, as well as a new transpacific service Taiwan-based Wan Hai Lines will be launching.
   Carriers “are sharing services to a degree we have never seen in the business” in an effort to cut costs, Port of Oakland Maritime Director John Driscoll said. “What’s good for our customers is good for the Port of Oakland. Whenever our customer’s customer – the shipping lines – can be more efficient and more healthy from an economic standpoint, then it is very good for us to be part of that. I think this is going to help them plan for the future, invest for the future and be successful for the future.”
   Ocean carrier schedule and capacity database BlueWater Reporting shows the CP2, jointly operated by PIL, and COSCO, in addition to Wan Hai, commenced operations from Qingdao April 3, and has a rotation of Qingdao, Shanghai, Ningbo, Los Angeles, Oakland and Qingdao.
   This service, which brings the number of regularly scheduled vessel services calling Oakland to 29, is “a good sign that a new player into the transpacific is interested in Oakland,” Driscoll said.
   “We’ll see larger vessels coming to the port, which is a good thing,” he said in a podcast on the port’s website. “We’ll get more container moves-per-vessel, which increases the efficiency of operations.”