CMA CGM Announces Tripartite Agreement on Asia – Middle East Line

As part of this agreement with CSCL and UASC, CMA CGM announces the reorganisation of its CIMEX 1 service on the Asia-Middle East market as from February 2nd 2012.

The new CIMEX 1 service will be operated jointly by CMA CGM, CSCL and UASC with 7 vessels of a capacity ranging from 12,500 to 14,400 teus (1 x 12,500 for CMA CGM, 3 x 14,400 for CSCL and 3 x 13,000 for UASC).

This new offer will enter into service on February 2nd in Tianjin with the CMA CGM DON CARLOS.

This service will replace two existing services:

– CIMEX / AMA for CMA CGM and CSCL which currently operates with 8,500 teus vessels

– AGX 1 for UASC which currently operates with 3,600 teus vessels

The rotation will be as follows:

Tianjin, Dalian, Pusan, Shanghai (YangShan Terminal), Ningbo, Shekou, Port Klang, Khorfakkan, Jebel Ali, Port Klang, Nansha, Tianjin.

This new service will allow CMA CGM to offer an excellent quality of service, a great reliability of schedule and port coverage among the best ones, while reducing operating costs. Moreover, as this new service is replacing two existing services on the market, it will not bring any addition of capacity.

Moreover, Jebel Ali, the 1st market of the region, will be directly called and Khorfakkan hub (U.A.E) will be used as an entry point to feed all the Gulf’s destinations via the CMA CGM’s feeder network.

In addition to this new service, CMA CGM is also finalising a swap agreement with another partner in order to keep direct access to Dammam – 3rd market of the Arabic Gulf region.

The new CIMEX 1 marks an important step in the evolution of the worldwide maritime transport as it is the first time that vessels of such a capacity (14,000 teus) are employed on a market other than Asia – Europe. This opens new perspectives of employment for this type of big vessels.

On the Asia – Europe market, CMA CGM maintains its presence with the FAL 2 service operated with 10 vessels of 12,500 / 14,000 teus (1 x 12,500 CMA CGM). The rotation of this existing service will be improved with the addition of two calls at Jeddah (east and westbound). These new calls will have no impact on the transit times which will be maintained at their current levels, especially for Le Havre and Rotterdam.

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World Maritime News Staff, February 1, 2012; Image: CMA CGM