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ContainerSignal Daily: Gemini restores ME1 on trans-Suez route

By ContainerSignal Editorial · · 11 min read

Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd will move the ME1 service between India and Europe from the Cape of Good Hope to the trans-Suez route, a structural change to the loop rather than a single voyage, Maersk said in an advisory on 2 November. The revised rotation runs Mundra, Nhava Sheva, Salalah, Suez Canal, Tangier, Rotterdam, Wilhelmshaven, Hamburg, London, Algeciras, Tangier, Suez Canal, Salalah and back to Mundra, with the Atlanta Express on voyage 644W last calling Salalah with an estimated departure of 4 November and the Savannah Express on 644E last calling Tangier on 13 November. The carrier kept its standing caveat: further changes within the Gemini Cooperation remain dependent on stability in the Red Sea area.

That caveat is doing real work, because the routing picture is uneven rather than resolved. Alphaliner’s survey of the ten largest carrier networks, reported by FreightWaves on 29 October, found 24 of 46 direct Asia-Europe services using the Red Sea, equal to 63% of deployed capacity, with the share at 70% on Mediterranean routes against 58% on North Europe services. Some strings are sailing Suez eastbound and the Cape westbound. ME1 is a mid-sized India-Europe link, so the capacity effect is smaller than the headline, but it is the clearest signal yet that the Cape detour is being dismantled loop by loop, as the analysis of the half-finished Suez return set out.

Today’s Signals

Trade Routes

Hormuz diplomacy produced a proposal, not a reopening. Iran has offered to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within two days if Washington meets its conditions, with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi saying Qatari mediators helped shorten an earlier seven-day sequence so that US steps come on the first day and shipping resumes on the second, Reuters reported via Hellenic Shipping News. President Donald Trump said talks were going fine while adding that Washington was not in a hurry, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said no decision had been taken on fresh strikes. Tehran’s conditions include sanctions relief, released frozen funds, restored oil waivers and recognition of a shipping route designated with Oman. US Central Command said its blockade of Iranian ports had redirected 144 commercial ships, and Drewry counted two vessels transiting Hormuz last week. Container exposure runs through Gulf hubs and feeder calls rather than mainline transits, and nothing in the proposal is confirmed as agreed.

Emirates Shipping Line is splitting its India to Red Sea network in two. The Dubai-based carrier will run a South Red Sea Service exclusively between Nhava Sheva and Jeddah with two ships of 1,800 to 2,600 TEU on a nine-day frequency, and a North Red Sea Service with two ships of 1,700 to 2,500 TEU calling Nhava Sheva, Djibouti, Aqaba, Sokhna, Sohar and back, at roughly fortnightly intervals, Maritime Gateway reported. No implementation date, vessel names or transit times were given in the service update the report was based on. Splitting a combined rotation into a dedicated Saudi shuttle and a wider relay is how smaller carriers respond when Red Sea calls carry different risk and demand profiles.

Ports

Congestion in the UAE has become a booking problem, not only a waiting problem. As of 30 October, average vessel waiting time at Khor Fakkan had reached 7.25 days, with arrivals averaging 7.4 days behind schedule and departures 5.7 days late over the previous 30 days, while Fujairah averaged 8.86 days of container vessel waiting over the previous seven days, Kuehne+Nagel reported. Sharjah vessels waited about three days for a berth, and terminal transfers from Khor Fakkan and Fujairah to Jebel Ali, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi stretched from about five days to 12 to 15 days. Maersk has restricted booking acceptance for Khor Fakkan, Fujairah and selected Upper Gulf destinations, citing continued disruption around Hormuz and regional port congestion. The forwarder’s advice, to spread cargo across gateways such as Salalah and Duqm rather than a single routing, is the same trade-off shippers face whenever a hub loses transhipment reliability, which the guide to transshipment covers.

Asian gateways are still working through typhoon bunching. DHL Global Forwarding’s port situation update for week 44, covering 26 October to 1 November, put berth waits at two to three days at both Manila terminals, with four vessels waiting at Manila International Container Terminal as of 28 October and yard density at 80% to 85%, and six vessels at Manila South Harbor, PortCalls reported. Ningbo waits ran three to four days with 20 vessels waiting as of 29 October, Shanghai two to three days with 69 vessels at Waigaoqiao and 14 at Yangshan, Busan’s BNCT yard has been above 90% since October with waits of 1.5 to 2 days, and Port Klang averaged two days with 15 vessels at anchorage. Yard density reached 97% at one Tokyo terminal and 93% at Yokohama. These are the conditions that drag schedule reliability down even when a carrier’s own proforma looks intact, as the explainer on schedule reliability sets out.

Two North European and US items are worth flagging. London Gateway stopped accepting empty containers from 12:00 on 2 November until further notice, with Maersk directing hauliers to Pentalver London Gateway, Tilbury or Southampton and warning of disruption for most of the week. In the US, the Pacific Maritime Association said talks with ILWU Local 26 will continue with assistance from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, with the strike deadline now 4 November, the Journal of Commerce reported.

Carrier and Terminal Results

COSCO Shipping Ports grew volume faster than profit in the third quarter. Terminals handled 42,266,553 TEU, up 8.4% year on year, and equity throughput rose 8.1% to 12,884,563 TEU, the company said in its results statement. Revenue rose 13.0% to US$484.3 million and gross profit 19.3% to US$128.1 million, but profit attributable to equity holders edged up 0.1% to US$82.6 million. Overseas terminals handled 11.3 million TEU, up 19.4% and 26.8% of the total, with Piraeus up 11.4% at 1.09 million TEU and Chancay up 24.9% at 139,669 TEU, while Chinese terminals rose 4.9% to 30.9 million TEU and the Yangtze River Delta slipped 0.3%. For the nine months, throughput rose 8.1% to 122.4 million TEU and profit 19.7% to US$316.3 million.

Fleet & Capacity

KMTC placed its first newbuilding order in China. The South Korean intra-Asia operator ordered six 3,100 TEU ships from CSSC Huangpu Wenchong, 18,600 TEU in total, with the contract signed in Guangzhou on 26 October and no price or delivery dates disclosed, PortCalls reported. KMTC has bought mostly from South Korean yards; Huangpu Wenchong has now booked 12 firm containership orders from Korean owners this year plus two options.

Regulation & Policy

India approved a scheme aimed at breaking China’s grip on container manufacturing. The Union Cabinet cleared the Container Manufacturing Promotion Scheme with an outlay of INR 10,000 crore, about US$1.05 billion, running 13 years to the 2039-40 financial year, Shipping Telegraph reported. It combines INR 859 crore of interest subvention at 3% a year on term loans for new and expanded plants, INR 8,891 crore of production-linked assistance per container built to global standards, and INR 150 crore for shared testing and certification facilities, and the government says it will lift domestic capacity roughly tenfold to 750,000 TEU a year. China accounts for more than 90% of world container supply, so equipment availability and box prices have been a single-country dependency for the whole liner network.

What It Means

Routing is normalising faster than the risk is. ME1 moving to Suez is a schedule decision taken while Hormuz remains effectively shut to most commercial traffic and while Iran is still negotiating over reopening it. Carriers can absorb that split because the two corridors serve different cargo: Suez carries Asia-Europe mainline boxes, Hormuz carries Gulf and feeder volumes that are currently arriving late into Khor Fakkan, Fujairah and Sharjah and then waiting 12 to 15 days to reach inland destinations.

For shippers, the practical effect is that the shortest routing is not automatically the fastest. A Suez transit saves days at sea but lands cargo in a network where North European terminals are turning away empties at London Gateway, Asian yards are still working off typhoon closures, and US west coast labour talks have been extended rather than settled. Booking acceptance, not proforma transit time, is the better indicator of what a schedule will actually deliver this month.

The capacity arithmetic also cuts both ways. Every loop that returns to Suez releases effective capacity that the Cape detour had absorbed, and ME1 is small enough that this week’s move barely registers. But it follows 63% of Asia-Europe deployed capacity already back through the Red Sea, and it lands in the same quarter as KMTC’s order and India’s container manufacturing scheme, both of which add supply to a market where spot rates on the main lanes are drifting lower.

Sources

Background reading

The explainers behind today's stories, if you want the fundamentals first.

Asia-Europe rates are riding a half-finished Suez return

Sixty-three percent of Far East to Europe capacity now uses Red Sea routings, but many loops still return via the Cape. That gap explains the rate rebound.

Asia-Europe rates fall even as the container network stays tight

Asia-Europe spot rates fell for a twelfth week while intra-Asia set another record and mid-size tonnage ran scarce. The two readings measure different layers.

Container rates are falling. The cost has moved to the rail leg

Drewry's index fell 3% in the week to 29 October while 35,688 boxes waited for trains at LA-Long Beach, showing where the import chain now jams.

Related reading

ContainerSignal Daily: Gemini targets full Suez return by Q1

Gemini adds a Suez-routed Asia-Med string from 22 November and expects almost all services back through the Red Sea by Q1, adding effective capacity.

ContainerSignal Daily: Maersk targets full Suez return by March 2027

Maersk expects all services back through Suez by March 2027, as Drewry warns the return releases 1.6 million TEU into a record orderbook.

ContainerSignal Daily: Charter rates hit a four-year high

Drewry's WCI rose 2% to US$4,585 per 40ft container, a 15-week high, while Braemar's charter index reached its highest level since 2022.