Chronic bottlenecks at Canada’s Vancouver Port have seen the Ocean Alliance split its Pacific North-west 3-Asia North-west Persian Gulf (ANP) service into two routes to reduce delays.

The Middle East part of the service will be a solo Asia-Persian Gulf loop, branded APG by Evergreen, China India Middle East Express 6 (CIMEX 6) by CMA CGM, and Middle East Express 5 (MEX 5) by Cosco, and calling Shanghai-Ningbo-Kaohsiung-Shekou-Port Klang Westport-Jebel Ali-Dammam-Umm Qasr-Jebel Ali-Port Klang (Westport)-Shanghai in 49 days.

Evergreen has assigned seven 9,400-9,500 teu ships to the service, which launches on 7 April.

Meanwhile, the Pacific North-west section will also operate as a standalone, marketed as Asia Northwest Pacific (ANP) by Evergreen, Northwest Express (NWX) by CMA CGM, and Evergreen PNW (EPNW) by Cosco. This service calls at Kaohsiung-Yantian-Shanghai-Ningbo-Tacoma-Vancouver-Tokyo-Nagoya-Osaka-Kaohsiung, and will also have a 49-day turnaround, using seven 5,300-9,500 teu ships from Evergreen.

Introduced in mid-2024, ANP was a Middle East-Far East-US West Coast pendulum service that would turn in 13 weeks, using ships of 6,000-9,500 teu.

Linerlytica’s report today mentions that Vancouver, where the ANP berths at the GCT Vanterm terminal, is facing congestion of up to seven days, meaning the estimated completion of the service could be held up.

EconDB data shows that, on average, container exports in Vancouver have a dwell time of seven days, and five days for imports.