News / Container shipping rates to West Africa take a dive as carriers use bigger vessels

The port of Luanda will struggle handling the larger vessels

CMA CGM has started to upgrade its Asia-West Africa ASAF fleet by replacing the 4,200-5,800 teu vessels with a series of 9,000 teu-plus ships.

According to Alphaliner data, the 9,365 teu CMA CGM Danube was phased into the ASAF service on 28 December while the 10,034 teu CMA CGM Columbia joined the loop on 16 January.

As well as Cape Town, the ASAF calls weekly at the West African ports of Walvis Bay (Namibia), Pointe-Noire (Republic of Congo) and Luanda (Angola), deploying ...