June 2006, 26 th week Maasvlakte 2: APM Terminals Raring to Go +++ Quadruplet Number Four: MSC Mara +++ Xin Los Angeles: CSCL s Emerald Jumbo +++ Cholguan premiers at Hamburg +++ CMA CGM Don Carlos +++ Hyundai Busan +++ Maersk Drummond Maasvlakte 2: APM Terminals Raring to Go Port of Rotterdam Authority (PRA) and APM Terminals have recently concluded an agreement for the lease of a container terminal on Maasvlakte 2. The Deal is still subject to conditions to be satisfied. The new facility will (eventually) have a size of 167 hectares with an annual handling capacity of 4.5 million TEU. The first phase of construction should be operational by 2014. Thus, PRA successfully secured the first large launching customer for Maasvlakte 2, which was an important condition for a go-ahead for the entire project. The decision will give both APM Terminals and its prime customer, sister company Maersk Line, room to grow in Rotterdam. The position of APMT and Maersk in Rotterdam is somewhat special, since Mearsk only recently incorporated P&O Nedlloyd. The latter company had already signed agreements on the construction of the Euromax terminal. (A development within the boundaries of the existing Maasvlakte area). Presently, PRA is also performing a tender for the lease of anther Massvlakte-2-facility: A 138 hectare
container terminal, dubbed Terminal 1. A total of 14 terminal operators and shipping lines have been selected as prequalified candidates, including APMT. The Danish company will however, withdraw from these tender procedures as soon as the conditions mentioned in the introduction are satisfied and the final go-ahead is given for APMT s Maasvlakte-2-project. This new terminal will be built in phases: The first part of the development is 60 hectares. From this starting point, the terminal can be extended berth by berth to a total of 167 hectares. The terminal will provide up to 2,400 meters of quay wall with a depth of up to 20 meters. Additionally, there will be a barge quay of 500 meters. Quadruplet Number Four: MSC Mara With so many container behemoths coming on stream these days, a regular panamax vessel may almost be overlooked upon its delivery. With a respectable total capacity of 5,089 TEU, the new MSC Mara is actually only a mid-sized ship by today s standards. Mara is a standard-type containership delivered by Hanjin HI of South Korea. She is build to the same design as MSC Debra, delivered in April this year. MSC Debra was the lead vessel in a series of four identical sisters. Shown here in Hong Kong s Lamma Channel, MSC Debra is a sister vessel to Mara. Photo: Jan Svendsen Ordered by Swiss-based Mediterranean Shipping Co, the series will be concluded with the delivery of MSC Olga in August. Hanjin HI will thus have delivered all four vessels within only four months. Furthermore, all three ships delivered up until
now, could be handed over well ahead of schedule and it looks like Olga will be handed over early, too. MSC Mara is destined to join MSC s Tiger Service, connecting China and Singapore to ports of the eastern Mediterranean. MSC is presently in a process of upgrading this loop to bigger capacity vessels. Xin Los Angeles: CSCL s Emerald Jumbo Quite some time ago, when this newsletter was still published at shiplovers.de, we first reported of Canadian Seapan s order for eight very large vessels, said to be in the region of 10,000 TEU. Seaspan had ordered theses vessels only after a long term charter had been agreed upon with Shanghai s CSCL container shipping company. The vessels were expected to turn out as the world s largest box carriers. Measured by their official 9,580 TEU capacity the might well live up to that claim, despite the fact that the most recent Maersk Line boats are obviously larger. Very recently however, South Korean the Samsung HI eventually delivered the first of the new ships to CSCL. Named Xin Los Angeles, the giant carries stows 18 rows of containers on a beam of 45.60m, just like the well-known MSC Pamela class of vessels. This is one additional row compared to most of today s common vessels of 8,000 to 9,000 TEU. At 336.70m, Xin Los Angeles is some meters longer than its Pamela-type half-sisters. Interestingly, the new ship was not delivered to Seaspan, but instead to CSCL who acquired it during the construction phase. The ship s name is a pointer towards this change of ownership, since only CSCL-owned vessels carry the Xin-prefix. The ship was accordingly offered on Hong Kong s investors market and carries the Hong Kong flag. A first for CSCL. Even though her name suggests a Pacific itinerary, Los Angeles will be placed on an Asia-Europe sling. She will perform two round trips in CSCL s AE-1 service, before joining the newly introduced FAL II in August. This service will be jointly operated by CSCL and CMA CGM. The Chinese carrier will probably introduce the fist four vessels of the Xin Los Angeles class to the FAL-II where they will operate alongside four similarly-sized Medea class ships brought in by CMA CGM. The remaining four ships, scheduled for delivery in 2007, will most likely be introduced on CLSC s AE1, where they could eventually replace the remaining 5,600 TEU units on that sling, which is otherwise
served by 8.400 TEU Oceania-class ships. As soon as the FAL-II is fully operational, CSCL will trim down its AE2 to an Asia- Mediterranean loop. According to CSCL s schedule, Xin Los Angeles s maiden call at Hamburg will be on June 28 th, two days later, the vessel will call at Rotterdam s ECT, a visit to Antwerp is planned for August 1 st. Cholguan premiers at Hamburg In one of our earlier editions of the weekly container shipping newsletter, we already portrayed Cholguan, the latest addition to the fleet of C-class vessels, jointly owned by Peter Döhle of Hamburg and CSAV. Since the new vessel recently premiered at Hamburg s Burchardkai container terminal, we can now provide you with a photograph of the new ship. Die Cholguan s first visit at Hamburg s Athabaskakai. Photo: Jan Tiedemann CMA CGM Don Carlos Let s stay with the FAL II sling as far as new ships are concerned: CMA CGM who virtually seem to take delivery of a new vessel every other week, have recently welcomed their latest addition to the fleet, the E.R. Toulouse. Sailing under the charter name CMA CGM Don Carlos this vessel will add another name to the long list of the French Line s opera ships. The vessel is a sister ship of CMA CGM Parsifal, another vessel chartered from Hamburg s E.R. Schiffahrt and introduced some months ago. Just like Parsifal, the new vessel will join the FAL I sling, completing this service s upgrade to vessels of +8,000 TEU. She will be followed by further ships of the same design,
that CMA CGM has contracted with E.R. These ships will gradually be introduced to the FAL I only to replace the larger Medea-Type vessels. After only a short spell on the FAL I, these ships will be phased into the abovementioned new FAL II joint service. E.R. Schiffahrt will take delivery of four sisters to E.R. Toulouse until the end of the year. All of these ships will be chartered to the French Line. CMA CGM Don Carlos is scheduled to arrive at Hamburg on July 24 th. Before that se can be seen at ECT in Rotterdam on the 22 nd. Hyundai Busan Following Hyundai Shanghai, the second ship of that series, Hyundai Busan, has been delivered to her owners. Busan and her yet to be delivered sisters will join the series lead ship on Hyundai Merchant Marine s (HMM s) main Asia-Europe service. With a capacity of roughly 6.800 TEU, the new vessels will ultimately boost the sling s weekly capacity by about 1,300 TEU. The new ship is part of a large-scale plan to boost HMM s fleet capacity. With a length of 300m and a beam of 40,00m, Hyundai Busan is pretty much a Hyundai HI standard type vessel. The yard successfully sold a large number of these rather similar ships to many well-known customers, including HHM who employ five such vessels on a transpacific loop. Hyundai Busan started its fist westbound voyage in her namesake port on June 28 th. She is expected in northern Europe in little over three weeks. The new vessel will be followed by sister Hyundai Hong Kong in only one month. Hyundai Shanghai was the series lead ship. Hyundai Busan has followed her into HMM s Asia-Europe service. Photo: Jan Tiedemann
Maersk Drummond Maersk Line has yet again taken delivery of another of it ubiquitous D-class box ships. Just like many of the countless D s, the recently delivered Maersk Drummond is not owned by Maersk, but chartered long-term. The ship is managed by German Patjens Reederei of Drochtersen. For Patjens, the vessel means an entirely new dimension of vessels: Until now the company s largest ships have been units of 2,700 TEU. Maersk Line had already been a charterer of such vessels. The Drummond was built by Hyundai HI in Ulsan, South Korea. She is a CC500 standard type with a maximum capacity of 5,040 TEU. The ship was launched as Serene P and will be followed by three identical sisters. Maersk will employ the ship in a new sling linking Asia and the southern part of the US-east coast. *** This Newsletter is edited and compiled by Jan Svendsen and Jan Tiedemann. This pdf-file is available for download at www.jantiedemann.de and www.containership-info.net.tc. Feel free to contact the editors by E-mail at www.jantiedemann@hotmail.com and jan.svendsen@gmx.net. We greatly appreciate your feedback and your input. More contact details can be obtained from the above websites. Please note the disclaimers displayed on the download pages. All information given in this newsletter is believed correct, but not guaranteed. For Assistance with the present issue, the editors gratefully acknowledge the contribution of Klaus Masuch.