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Two of the world’s biggest container shipping lines have announced a new partnership, in a major reshaping of the industry’s commercial relationships.
In a surprise announcement on Wednesday, Denmark’s Maersk and Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd said they would establish a “new long-term operational collaboration” from February 2025.
Container shipping alliances offer customers a wider range of destinations and services because lines share space on each other’s ships.
Maersk, operator of the second-biggest container ship fleet, announced last year that from January 2025 it would end its 2M alliance with Mediterranean Shipping Company, the world’s biggest container line.
Hapag-Lloyd, which operates the world’s fifth-biggest fleet, will leave the THE alliance, of which it is the largest member.
News of the “Gemini Cooperation” comes as container lines grapple with disruption from terror attacks in the Red Sea that have forced them to divert nearly all services travelling though the Suez Canal to longer routes via the Cape of Good Hope.
Services between Asia and Europe have been most affected, although shipping between Asia and the US east coast via Suez has also been hit.
Simon Heaney, senior manager in container research at London-based Drewry Shipping Consultants, said alliances were vital for shipping lines and their customers.
“Alliances . . . allow operators to get more efficiency from their networks,” Heaney said. “From a shipper perspective, you get more competition between any two given ports.”
The announcement took the industry by surprise because Maersk, which controls 14.6 per cent of global container ship capacity, had been expected to operate without alliance partners after January 2025. Maersk is part of Denmark’s AP Møller-Maersk.
Hapag-Lloyd’s departure from the THE Alliance puts the remaining alliance members — Japan’s Ocean Network Express, Taiwan’s Yang Ming and South Korea’s HMM — “under the spotlight”, Heaney said. Hapag-Lloyd operates 6.9 per cent of global container ship capacity, according to figures from Alphaliner, an information service. The remaining THE alliance members account for just 11.6 per cent of the world fleet.
“What are they going to do?” Heaney asked. “They don’t have the scale to continue as they were.”
The other big alliance — the Ocean Alliance — between France’s CMA CGM, China’s Cosco and Taiwan’s Evergreen — controls 29.3 per cent of the fleet.
Another industry veteran agreed the new deal was likely to force changes in other alliances.
Ocean Network Express said it had been “aware” of the possibilities of changing partnerships and would continue to provide a “broad, high-quality service network” beyond 2025.
The Gemini Cooperation will cover seven significant trade routes, including Asia to the US West Coast, Asia to the US East Coast and Asia to Northern Europe.
Johan Sigsgaard, Maersk’s Chief Product Officer, said both companies expected the Suez Canal to be back in normal use by February 2025, when the new arrangement came into force.
But he added: “If that’s not the case, we’ll need to look at the alternative.”
According to figures from Clarksons, a shipping services company, container ship arrivals in recent days at the mouth of the Red Sea are 90 per cent down on levels in early December last year. Most vessels have diverted to travel via the Cape of Good Hope, a route that adds up to two weeks to sailings between Asia and Northern Europe.
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