Container lines reduce Busan – Australia trade

Hamburg Süd, COSCON and ICS consortium, with MOL and NYK, have decided to reduce their capacities in the service between North East Asia, Brisbane and New Zealand with immediate effect. Hapag-Lloyd and Maersk Lines come in on this service as slot charterers.

To this end, Hamburg Süd’s Asia – Australia/New Zealand Service (ANZL) and COSCON - ICS's service will be combined to create a weekly fixed day service providing expanded port coverage in Asia and New Zealand.

The new service has the following port rotation: Auckland – New Plymouth – Nelson (fortnightly) – Wellington (fortnightly) – Lyttelton – Napier – Tauranga – Tokio – Kobe – Busan – Shanghai – Yantian – Hong Kong – Brisbane – Auckland.

Service to and from Brisbane will be offered exclusively by Hamburg Süd.

The new service will see the deployment of six modern 3,000 to 3,500 TEU vessels. Hamburg Süd and COSCON will each provide two, while MOL and NYK will be contributing 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.

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. More information on the extra-loader program will be made available in the near future.<Korea Shipping Gazette>