Following successful test voyages, Maersk is back in the conflicted region with a service of 14 ships connecting the Middle East and India with the US East Coast.
Maersk is now resuming operations through the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait with all ships on its so-called MECL service, the carrier has informed ShippingWatch and announced broadly in a press release on Thursday morning CET.
Specifically, this is a service connecting the Middle East and India with the US East Coast. Currently, a total of 14 ships are sailing on Maersk’s MECL service south of Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.
They have been doing so since the beginning of 2024, when most shipping companies redirected their ships away from the Red Sea after the Yemeni Houthi movement carried out several armed attacks on merchant ships in the area.
However, the route south of Africa is significantly longer and can add up to 14 days to voyages from Asia to Europe.
Maersk has informed ShippingWatch that the recently announced return will free up capacity, as the ships will sail shorter distances, and the shipping company’s MECL service will therefore consist of only 12 ships by the end of the first quarter.
In recent days, violent protests in Iran have prompted the US to threaten a possible military response. This was followed by Iran warning of harsh retaliation against US bases. In response, the US and the UK withdrew military personnel from their bases in Qatar, among others, yesterday afternoon.
Maersk emphasizes that the shipping company is prepared if the situation in the Middle East deteriorates.
“.Maersk has contingency plans in place should the security situation deteriorate, which may necessitate reverting individual MECL sailings or the wider structural change of the MECL service back to the Cape of Good Hope route,” the shipping company writes.
“The safety of crew, assets, and customers’ cargo remains the highest priority.”
The Maersk Detroit also departed from North Charleston on Jan. 10 and will be the first eastbound vessel to use the route through the Suez Canal.
“All subsequent voyages will follow this route,” writes Maersk.
However, a full-scale return may still be a long way off.
In December, Maersk’s head of Northern Europe, Ole Trumpfheller, told the German media outlet Deutsche Verkehrs-Zeitung that it will take up to six months to reconfigure the shipping company’s routes between Asia and Europe.
Johan Sigsgaard, product manager for Ocean at Maersk, further described in a market update this week that a return will cause disruptions, especially for container shipping companies.
“There is no doubt that there will be added volatility to supply chains once container liners begin the shift back to East-West transits through the Red Sea, just as we saw when the industry started sailing via the Cape of Good Hope,” he explained, adding:
“So the acceleration of vessel arrivals into Europe means overstocking is a distinct possibility.”
Gratitude to the Suez Canal
Rumors of Maersk’s possible return to the Red Sea began circulating as early as November.
A rather strange sequence of events unfolded after the shipping group’s chief executive, Vincent Clerc, visited the chairman of the Suez Canal Authority, Osama Rabie.
After the meeting, the authority announced on social media platform X that Maersk and its competitor CMA CGM would return to the area at the beginning of the following month.
However, Maersk and its alliance partner Hapag-Lloyd then sent a correction to several media outlets, stating that no timeline had yet been set for when Maersk would return to the Red Sea.
Now, however, it appears that the Suez Canal Authority was simply a step ahead of events. The cooperation between Maersk and the important maritime canal is seemingly intact and, according to Maersk itself, has played a significant role in making a return possible.
“The strategic partnership between Maersk and the Suez Canal Authority has played a key role in the planning of the return,” the shipping group wrote today, Thursday, continuing:
”Collaboration with the Suez Canal Authority and other strategic partners in the region continues to be critical to ensure that the structural change of the MECL service and any next steps in a gradual trans-Suez return happens in a way that ensures the safety of the operations and safeguards predictability and stability for customers.”
Thursday’s announcement also emphasizes why it is important for Maersk to return to Suez:
“The route through the Suez, the Red Sea, and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait is the fastest, most sustainable and most efficient way to serve customers with transport between Asia and Europe.”
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Source: SHIPPINGWATCH