CMA CGM is reportedly preparing to resume Suez Canal transits with a key service linking India and the Middle East with the US east coast, allowing it resume calls at Mediterranean wayports.
“Forward schedules suggest CMA CGM will redirect its Indian Subcontinent-US east coast Indamex service via Suez, from mid-November.
“It will enable the French carrier to reinstate calls at Damietta and Jeddah in both ways, as well as at Tanger Med (westbound only),” Alphaliner wrote in a research note this morning.
The liner analyst said it expected the revised Suez routing to begin with the 9,700 teu CMA CGM Pellas, scheduled to depart Pakistan’s Port Qasim on 13 November.
However, the most recent AIS reading of the vessel confirms it is still en route to Port Qasim and suggests it will only arrive on the day it is scheduled to leave.
Regardless, rerouting the service through the Red Sea and via the Suez Canal will have the effect of reducing the service’s round-trip voyage time by seven days – from 12 to 11 weeks – and also require one vessel fewer on the loop, also from 12 to 11.
“It is believed that the Houthi rebels are not attacking these ships as they carry containers to and from the Lebanese ports of Beirut and Tripoli,” Alphaliner added, noting the strong Lebanese connections of the French liner group – founder Jacques Saade was born in Beirut and formed CMA after leaving the country during the 1980s war.
The carrier’s BEX2 service, part of the Ocean Alliance’s Asia-Mediterranean network, features two direct Lebanon calls – at Beirtut and Tripoli – and resumed Suez transits in April.
Alphaliner claimed that both the Indamex and BEX2 services only deploy CMA CGM tonnage, although the eeSea liner database lists alliance partners Cosco, OOCL and Evergreen as minority vessel providers.
Although the Indamex service does not make a direct Lebanon call, it is likely to tranship Lebanese cargo at the Egyptian hub of Damietta.
The full Indamex port rotation is: Port Qasim-Nhava Sheva-Mundra-Jeddah-Damietta-Tanger Med-New York-Norfolk-Savannah-Charleston-Damietta-Jeddah-Port Qasim.