News Highlights week: 19 - 2024

Aptly marketed as ‘CVT’, this new loop turns in three weeks serving Shanghai, Ningbo, Chiwan, Ho Chi Minh City, Laem Chabang, Bangkok, Laem Chabang, Chiwan, Shanghai with three 1,900 – 2,000 teu vessels. 

The recently delivered 1,956 teu MILD JASMINE kicked off the ‘CVT’, when she departed from Shanghai on 30 April. 
This vessel will be followed by the 1,912 teu ZHONG GU HUANG HAI and ZHONG GU NAN HAI later this month.
So far, it is not yet confirmed if Zhonggu Logistics is participating in this service or if the two Zhonggu-owned ships are being chartered out. 
With the ‘CVT’, Jin Jiang Shipping further enhances coverage of the three aforementioned countries. 
The new loop adds to the carriers’ ‘IA88’, the ‘CTX’, the ‘CTX2’, the ‘JCV’ and the ‘VTX3’. 
Jin Jiang offers some of these loops through slots, while it is a vessel provider on others.
Maersk Ocean posts third consecutive quarterly loss 
Danish shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk reported its third consecutive operating loss on shipping activities in the first quarter of the year, despite the boost from Red Sea trade diversions. 
Maersk Ocean logged a deficit of –USD 161 M for the period, although the result was a significant improvement on the –USD 920 M EBIT loss posted in Q4 2023. 

Maersk attributed the better result to strong volumes, high utilisation and continued cost discipline. On the back of better shipping market conditions, the group raised its group earnings guidance for the year. 
Rates leapt 23% in Q1 compared to the previous quarter, from USD 963 to USD1,184 from per teu. Meanwhile, volumes fell quarter-on-quarter ‘in line with normal seasonality’, said Maersk, but rose year-on-year, from 5.4 Mteu to 5.9 Mteu, an increase of 7.5%. 
So far, COSCO Group and ONE are the only other carriers to report for Q1. Both companies were profitable in the period.