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Italian forwarder Rif Line has withdrawn some services of its liner unit, Kalypso Compagnia di Navigazione, following other opportunists quitting lanes as earnings come under pressure.
The company has discontinued its transatlantic Cristoforo Colombo service, which launched in November using up to three ships of 1,300-3,000 teu, carrying containers between New York and Mediterranean ports, including Taranto, Salerno, Civitavecchia, La Spezia and Sagunto.
Kalypso will retain its Marcopolo service, connecting China, Bangladesh and Italy, using the 2,174 teu Highway and 2,519 teu Zhong Gu Ying Kou, while the 1,794 teu Emora will be redelivered after ending its current Mediterranean-China trip at Ningbo yesterday.
Kalypso was established in December 2021 to operate container shipping services for Rif Line Group and also added regular calls at Chittagong on its service to Ravenna and Salerno, two 1,100 teu ships deployed on the route.
In the week ended 26 May, the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index showed Shanghai-Mediterranean rates had gone up marginally, to $1,651 per teu, from $1,628/teu the previous week. Carriers will attempt to raise rates on 1 June, but Linerlytica said any gains were expected to be short-lived as more capacity is being added to an oversupplied market.
Linerlytica estimates there is now some 1.94m teu of capacity in the Far East-Mediterranean lane, up from 1.85m teu in April. Transatlantic capacity is around 407,626 teu, down from 419,121 teu in April.
As the freight market reverts to pre-Covid levels, many opportunistic shipping lines have pulled out of long-haul and mid-haul trades. This month, The Loadstar reported that Transfar Shipping, BAL Container Line and China International Marine Containers had called time on Asia-Europe and transpacific services.
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