Hanjin’s valuable legacy
The cat’s out of the bag now. 2M, that is to say Maersk and MSC, have reached an agreement with South Korea’s Samra Midas Group. The latter’s SM Line, still young and one of the heirs in the northern Pacific of the Hanjin shipping company, will cater to demand for its partners on these routes – though not alone.
The story began in 2016, when SM Line was founded in South Korean shipping’s ‘annus horribilis’. With the support of the Samra Midas Group, whose constituents include the Korea Line Corporation (from 2013 onwards) and the Korea Shipping Corporation, the newly-founded shipping company was designed to acquire the trans-Pacific and intra-Asia portfolios of the ailing maritime carrier Hanjin Shipping, which went bankrupt.
An additional eleven containerships and two terminals in Gwangyang and Incheon changed hands – for what can be called small change in the context of the international shipping industry, namely USD 23 million. Hanjin’s South Korean heir was born and equipped.
The following year, in 2017, SM Line’s first link, the Pacific Northwest service, with six vessels offering 4,300 teu capacities each, started operating from Busan. The first rotation called at Vancouver, Seattle, the Chinese ports of Yantian, Ningbo and Shanghai, at Tokyo, Busan and the South Korean port of Gwangyang.
Additional capacities were soon built up, as 21 owned vessels totalling 100,000 teu and another 50,000 teu of chartered in capacities were brought in. The shipping line used these resources to focus primarily on intra-Asia routes, operating six services in these regions.
Recognition from the big boys
Now a new cooperation agreement between SM Line and 2M, that is to say MSC and Maersk, will become operational on 1 April. According to MSC it is “a combination of slot exchange agreements as well as slot purchases between the three parties MSC, Maersk and SM Line.” The expanded alliance is still subject to regulatory approval, however.
The two majors have thus rounded off their services. The new MSC Rose service, which covers ports in China, South Korea, Canada and the US states of Washington and Oregon, will use SM Line’s Pacific Northwest service in future.
Of course the new love has its geographical as well as its partnership limits. MSC and Maersk’s existing services to and from the US east coast and the Gulf of Mexico will remain unchanged, and 2M’s accords with the Israeli shipping line ZIM in the northwestern Pacific region will also remain in force.
