The make up of a third global container alliance has been revealed by the Wall Street Journal. Japan’s Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK), Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL), Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha (K Line) are joining forces with South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping and Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM), Taiwan’s Yang Ming and Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd. An official announcement on the new alliance is expected within the next 24 hours.
“Hapag-Lloyd is in separate merger talks with Dubai-based United Arab Shipping Co. UASC will either be part of the new alliance or join in after the completion of the merger talks,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
Hapag-Lloyd declined to comment when contacted by Splash, although a spokesperson said there would be no announcement coming from the Hamburg line this week.
Members of the new alliance are known to have met with the Federal Maritime Commission in the US yesterday.
The new alliance, formed out of the rumps of the imploding G6 and CKYHE alliances will go head to head with the existing 2M alliance made up of Maersk and MSC and the Ocean Alliance, comprising CMA CGM, China Cosco Shipping, OOCL, Evergreen and possibly APL, which is set to start in Q2 next year.
Commenting on the new third and as yet unnamed alliance Lars Jensen from SeaIntelligence Consulting told Splash: “This would bring clarity to the competitor landscape of the major east-west trades from next year. However, an alliance of seven members will be a challenge in terms of agreeing on a network. In order to make this succeed it will require the members to cast aside significant parts of their own specific needs in the interest of the overall good for the alliance. This in turn would require a strong governance across the seven carriers as well as, most likely, a particularly strong hand from the largest member – Hapag-Lloyd – in setting the basic framework for designing the network.”
LATEST: THE Alliance formed by Hanjin, Hapag-Lloyd, K Line, MOL, NYK and Yang Ming
