News / Regional feeder lines dip their toes into India-Red Sea trades

India-Middle East-Red Sea trades are seeing an influx of capacity from regional feeder carriers, with slots shared with NVOs for assured cargo support, as mainliners continue to reroute vessels via the Cape of Good Hope with longer transits and schedule disruptions.

CULines, CStar and UGL, relatively newcomers to the industry, have joined the capacity bandwagon, notwithstanding the perceptible security risks and higher insurance costs attached to Red Sea routings.

Under a vessel-sharing agreement, they have added a weekly string on the route using four 1,700 teu vessels. Dubbed IMR by CULines, the service connects Nhava Sheva and Mundra, out of West India, to Jeddah, Jebel Ali, Aqaba, Sokhna, Port Sudan, Djibouti and Aden.

PSA Mumbai in Nhava Sheva hosted the MV XH Dolphin last month, marking the new service launch out of India, saying: “It offers enhanced connectivity between India, the Middle East and the Red Sea region.”

According to industry sources, most carriers venturing into this market appear to be China-linked and believed to have been guaranteed safe passage through the Red Sea.

One glaring factor validating this is that China’s Cosco Shipping has regular breakbulk or multipurpose vessel sailings from ports in India to Europe and the Mediterranean, transiting the Red Sea/Gulf of Aden route.

A raft of container services has sprung up for Red Sea cargo in recent months. Singapore-headquartered niche feeder line SeaLead, which continued to keep its network via the Red Sea, began a service between India, the Middle East and the Red Sea in early September, known as the Far East India Djibouti (FID) service.  On a weekly rotation, it has stops at Ningbo, Nansha, Port Klang, Colombo, Nhava Sheva, and Mundra before Djibouti.

Singapore-based ONE, which has had suffered some network setbacks due to new industry alliance developments, has also added a loop into this trade. The Red Sea Gulf India Service 2 has a 28-day round-trip rotation covering Mundra, Jebel Ali, Jeddah, Aqaba, Sokhna, Jeddah, Mundra.

Saudi Arabia-based Folk Maritime is the other budding ship operator trying to grab the lucrative trade opportunity, having recently opened a two-vessel string between West India and the Red Sea via Jeddah.

“The new route will further enhance bilateral trade between Saudi Arabia and India, and underlines our ambition to become one of the leading maritime service providers in the region,” said CEO Poul Hestbaek.

And a Mumbai-based industry observer told The Loadstar: “Many NVOs have capacity arrangements with these tonnage providers, operating on both sea and inland so as to avoid the Suez Canal passage.”

“Smaller lines, trying to make some real money when cargo is not flowing normally, are able to realise their targeted volumes for each voyage this way,” the source explained.