Econships' demise will provide the room for Maersk SeaLand restructuringMAERSK SEALAND is to merge its two transatlantic services, deploying the 4,000-TEU Econships acquired by Sealand from the defunct US Lines in the late 1980s.
The company will merge the services, which together provide about 220,000 TEUs of annualised capacity, with the result that around one third of this capacity could be withdrawn from the North Europe-Atlantic trades, and placed on the Mediterranean-US Gulf-US east coast trades under the MedGulf service.
On that service, the vessels will replace chartered tonnage.
The move comes as the existing Atlantic Vessel Sharing Agreement, which deploys nine Econships (four on the North Atlantic and five on the South Atlantic), is set to end in July. VSA partners chartering space on the Econships, P&O-Nedlloyd and Orient Overseas Container Lines, are holding talks with lines in Americana Ships over the setting of a Grand Alliance-Americana Ships service network with up to five loops on the Atlantic.
There will be no immediate changes to Maersk SeaLand's other Atlantic service, known as the TA3, which continues to the US west coast and Asia under the name, TP3. This service deploys 11 of the 4,000-TEU "M" class vessels.
On the two existing services, four Econships serve the US east coast ports of Boston, New York and Norfolk. On the South Atlantic service, five ships call at Charleston (in and outbound), Port Everglades, Houston and Jacksonville. The TA3 also serves New York, Norfolk and Charleston, as well as Miami.
There will be a streamlining of ports in the newly merged service, but Maersk Sealand is not rushing to make a decision on which ports will be used. The likely start up date for the service is July.
Those Econships moving to the MedGulf service will replace time chartered tonnage, which will either be returned to the shipowner, or switched to other services.
The MedGulf service calls at Malta, Gioia Tauro, Genoa, Valencia, Algeciras, Newark, Charleston, Miami, Houston, Freeport, Charleston, Algeciras, Malta, Gioia Tauro, Genoa, Valencia, Malta. Six ships averaging 3,000 TEUs are deployed at the moment. CMA has a slot allocation on this service.
In northern Europe, streamlining of the ports of call is made significantly easier, because Bremerhaven, Felixstowe and Rotterdam are called at on both existing services.
Le Havre is a port of call on the North Atlantic service. All four ports figure on the TA3 service.
Meanwhile, Americana Ships is having problems keeping its own North Atlantic Sprint service on schedule. Lykes chartered four new 2,000-TEU vessels early in 1999 to operate the service, which should eventually form part of the new Atlantic agreement with the Grand Alliance.
However, two of the four ships, APL Atlantic and Lykes Voyager, have both suffered main engine cracking and have been withdrawn from service. The Polish-built ships are understood to be suffering from design faults in the engine casing. A third sistership, MOL Europe, also deployed in the North Atlantic Sprint, was withdrawn from service following a collision in late January outside Le Havre.
Lykes Lines offers no comment on the latest happenings.