Maersk’s Sealand unit said it is expanding its service between the U.S. West Coast and Latin America.
The company said it has redesigned port rotations and will be using two strings of ships will that will offer four sailings a week to connect the California ports of Long Beach, Oakland, Los Angeles and Hueneme with Latin America. It said the services will use nine vessels with high capacity for refrigerated cargo and start up in July.
The WCCA service will have a new rotation: Paita, Peru-Guayaquil, Ecuador-Balboa, Panama-Puerto Caldera, Costa Rica-Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala-Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico-Ensenada, Mexico-Los Angeles-Port Hueneme, California-Lazaro Cardenas-Puerto Quetzal-Acajutla, El Salvador-Balboa.
A second string called the WCCA 2, which will replace the WAMS service will have a rotation of Balboa-Corinto, Nicaragua-Acajutla-Lazaro Cardenas-Long Beach-Oakland-Lazaro Cardenas-Corinto-Puerto Caldera.
Sealand said in a filing with the Federal Maritime Commission that it will sell space on the services to CMA CGM and APL between California ports and ports in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
The slot charter agreement, which is pending, is posted on the FMC website.
APL said its WC1 service will offer the following rotation: Los Angeles-Lazaro Cardenas-Puerto Quetzal-Acajutla-Puerto Quetzal-Lazaro Cardenas-Los Angeles.
APL’s WC2 service will offer the following rotation: Long Beach-Oakland-Lazaro Cardenas-Corinto-Acajutla-Lazaro Cardenas-Long Beach.