HMM goes it alone on Asia-Med – 'clearly the strongest trade'

South Korean ocean carrier HMM is upgrading its coverage of the lucrative Asia-Mediterranean trade in August with a new standalone service.

Outside HMM’s THE Alliance vessel-sharing agreement, which already offers three weekly loops, it will commence with the sailing of the 11,000 teu HMM Blessing from Busan on 6 August. The ship is currently deployed on a transpacific Asia to US west coast loop.

Moreover, HMM indicates it will be looking at launching more independent services as it seeks to grow its global box carrier ranking, while readjusting its network to mitigate softer demand on trades.

“We are expecting to extend our reach to the India and Mediterranean trades. We will continue to expand our presence in these regions and provide more reliable services with an enhanced service portfolio,” said HMM.

The round-trip voyage will take 84 days and the new service, branded the FIM loop by HMM, will also feature calls at Indian ports. The full port rotation is: Busan-Kwangyang-Shanghai-Ningbo-Shekou-Singapore-Port Klang-Kattupalli-Nhava Sheva-Mundra-Karachi-Jeddah-(Suez Canal)-Damietta-Piraeus-Genoa-Valencia-Barcelona-Piraeus-Damietta-(Suez Canal)-Jeddah-Karachi-Mundra-Nhava Sheva-Kattupalli-Singapore-Da Chan Bay-Busan.

Healthy demand, ahead of what looks like a good peak season for the Asia-Mediterranean tradelane, has encouraged ocean carriers to add capacity to loops and launch new services to take advantage of container spot rates that are almost double those for North European ports.

Maersk said last week it was “proactively working on additional capacity to cater for customer demand” from ports in Asia to the Mediterranean, while its 2M Alliance partner, MSC, has already injected more capacity into the trade.

In the first show of differing strategies, following the announcement in January of the end-2024 disbanding of the 2M, MSC relaunched its Asia-Mediterranean Dragon service in March – a service which had been mothballed since the start of the pandemic – as a standalone loop deploying 12 15,000 teu vessels.

HMM FIM Service Presentation attached.