The weekly Ocean Alliance NEU4 service, operated by French-based CMA-CGM, will link the port of Zeebrugge with the Asian ports of Tianjin, Qingdao, Shanghai, Ningbo, and Yantian, China as well as Busan, Korea, beginning with the first call of the 13,380 TEU capacity APL Changi on May 16th.
The NEU4 service is one of six Asia/North Europe services offered by the Ocean Alliance, which began operations on April 1st with CMA CGM, COSCO Container Lines, CMA CGM, Evergreen Line and Orient Overseas Container Line as members.
The Ocean Alliance deploys approximately 350 container vessels with an estimated total container capacity of 3.5 million TEUs.
The service will call the 1.3 million annual throughput capacity APM Terminals Zeebrugge facility, which with a depth of 17 meters and seven STS cranes can accommodate vessels of up to 20,000 capacity.
The largest vessel handled by APM Terminals Zeebrugge to date was the 19,224 TEU capacity MSC Maya, on April 15th, 2017. The NEU4 service will deploy 12 vessels, of up to 17,859 TEU capacity.