CMA CGM to terminate three East-West services within the next few months

The French line will abandon two Asia-Mediterranean services and switch them to the North Africa trade using its new terminal in Tangiers, Morocco as a transhipment centre, according to PR News Service.

The North Africa Express (Nafex), which tranships over Malta, will end this month and the Levant Express (Levex) service will end next month.

CMA CGM will also terminate its China-Middle East Express 3 (CIMEX3) service, which was only launched in April this year, in November, the news service reported.

CMA CGM's French Asia Line (FAL) service will start making regular weekly calls at Tangiers next month picking up the Nafex North Africa volumes to and from Asia and the Middle East while the Levex capacity will be switched to the Phoenician Express (BEXII) service.

CMA CGM has a 40 percent stake in the second terminal at the Tangiers Med 1 complex. The FAL service is in the process of a capacity upgrade from 8,400 to 11,000 TEU vessels.

The Nafex withdrawal will take around 2,800 TEUs of weekly capacity out of the market, while the switch of the 3,400 TEU vessels deployed on the Levex service to the BEXII service will take out another 2,800 TEUs of weekly capacity.

The demise of the CIMEX3 service, which backs up the initial CIMEX service that caters for central and northern China, will pull out 2,700 TEUs of weekly capacity out of the Asia-Middle East marketplace.

The CIMEX3 has a rotation of Xiamen, Shantou, Chiwan, Laem Chabang, Port Kelang, Colombo, Nhava Sheva, Jebel Ali, Port Kelang, Xiamen. The service deploys five 2,200 to 3,200 TEU capacity vessels with ANL and Cheng Lie having slots on the service.

CMA CGM's Asia-Med moves will streamline the coverage of the area to seven of its own services, plus several slot agreements with other lines, including Evergreen.

Earlier this year, lines in the Grand Alliance and New World Alliance decided to take similar action by combining their two individual services covering the Asia-Eastern Mediterranean trade. That move effectively took eight vessels of around 3,500 TEU capacity out of the market.

Overall capacity growth on the Asia-Mediterranean trade is presently running at around 6.6 percent prior to CMA CGM's streamlining programme, which is in line with the westbound market growth this year.

According to shipping executives, westbound rates on the Asia-Mediterranean trade have fallen almost on a par with that of Asia-North Europe, and right now an average westbound figure hovers at around US$500 per TEU, well over half what it was a year ago.