New shipping alliance Gemini makes maiden call at the Port of Gothenburg

When the vessel Charm C called at the Port of Gothenburg at 10 p.m. on March 31, it marked the start of a new container service between the Port of Gothenburg, Asia, and North America, focusing on increased punctuality and efficiency. The new service is part of the shipping companies Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd's new global liner network called Gemini.

With Gemini, Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd aim to create a more efficient global container service that improves punctuality and reduces vulnerability to disruptions. This is to be achieved by reducing the number of ports directly called at by the ocean-going vessels and instead connecting the system through dedicated so-called shuttle vessels that serve selected ports with high frequency.

“This collaboration is the biggest change in container shipping in many years. Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd’s new Gemini setup is a new and interesting system with high ambitions for import- and export industry customers. The Port of Gothenburg is the only Swedish port included in the new service, and it’s both positive and logical that the shipping companies continue to invest in Gothenburg as a hub for the Scandinavian market,” says Claes Sundmark, Vice president Sales and Marketing at the Port of Gothenburg.

“Frequent service with high quality”
The vessel Charm C, with a capacity of 2,500 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units), will call at APM Terminals at the Port of Gothenburg weekly and operate a loop between Gothenburg, Wilhelmshaven, and Bremerhaven. In these ports, cargo will be transshipped to ocean-going vessels for further transport to Asia, including the Middle East/India, as well as North America.

“Our ambition with the new traffic structure is to offer the industry a frequent service with high quality, which means that we will be able to increase our delivery reliability even further. We have a lot of confidence in the Gemini system and believe it will benefit our customers both in Sweden and globally,” says Birna Odefors, Area MD Scandinavia at Maersk.

Kristoffer Hellstrand, Country Manager at Hapag-Lloyd (Sweden): “We are now taking an important step forward, and the collaboration within Gemini allows us to create even greater value for our customers. With the new setup, we can use both our own and partner terminals and vessels, which leads to a more stable and efficient system with fewer disruptions and delays.”

Maersk has also launched two separate services between Gothenburg-Bremerhaven, and Gothenburg-Bremerhaven-Hamburg-Gdansk. These services complement the Gemini system and are operated by three vessels with a capacity of up to 6,000 TEU.