Maersk Expects No Cost Impact From Port Fees, Assures ‘Unchanged' Service

Yahoo

09-05-2025

U.S. port docking fees may have spooked the container shipping industry and the retail industry alike, among many others, before they were finalized in mid-April. But Maersk is brushing the concerns aide, assuring its customers it won't see any direct impacts.
'At this time, we do not see a direct cost from this initiative impacting Maersk or our customers,' said the ocean carrier in a customer advisory Thursday. 'We do not anticipate changes to our U.S. port rotations due to the new fees. Your current service plans remain unchanged.'
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Maersk, which moves product for retail giants including Walmart, Target, Nike and Gap, Inc., is seeking to quell concerns that range from higher container prices to fewer port calls and lengthier delivery times.
Starting Oct. 14, fees on Chinese-owned and -operated ships will be based on net tonnage per U.S. voyage, and will be set at $50 per net ton. From there, an extra $30 per net ton will be tacked on each year through 2028.
But Chinese-built ships owned by non-Chinese companies, which Maersk falls under, will be charged $18 per net ton, with annual fee increases of $5 over the same period.
The penalties were levied by the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) after it ruled that China had an 'unreasonable' state-subsidized dominance of the maritime, logistics and shipbuilding sectors, concluding a nine-month long investigation.
Of the major non-Chinese ocean carriers, Maersk had the most U.S. calls using Chinese-built vessels. Out of a total of 214 Maersk ships sailing to U.S. ports, 38 were built in China, ahead of ZIM's 37, CMA CGM's 36 and MSC's 34, according to data from Alphaliner.
But the container shipping firm's wider fleet of 737 ships, along with its vessel-sharing alliance with Hapag-Lloyd, will likely ensure that the company can more easily switch USTR-compliant ships in to call at U.S. ports once the fees go into effect.
Across the industry, only 20 percent of the current fleet of container ships calling at U.S. ports would be affected. Those vessels are expected to be swapped with exempt ships over the next six months, according to an April 21 blog from container shipping analysis firm Linerlytica.
'All of the main carriers have sufficient exempt ships available to make the switch without severe operational disruptions,' said Linerlytica.
As the Maersk-Hapag Lloyd Gemini Cooperation further phases in, schedule reliability has remained a top priority for both carriers as they call at fewer ports.
In March, Gemini recorded a 90.3 percent schedule reliability across all alliance port calls, according to Sea-Intelligence. This marked the second month in a row the carriers have adhered to their 90-percent reliability goal the companies set when they entered the alliance last year.
In a Thursday earnings call, CEO Vincent Clerc said the modularization of the Gemini network has enabled the companies to cater to the lower China-to-U.S. demand without resorting to blank sailings—a forward-looking indicator of its ability to shift Chinese-built ships out of rotation before docking at American ports.
'So you have an 8,000-20-foot equivalent unit (TEU) ship, and the demand drops by 40 percent—you swap the 8,000 with a 6,000-TEU ship that helps soften that,' Clerc said. 'Then you deploy your 8,000-TEU ship in another trade where the 6,000 was before and where there is better demand and where you can get better asset utilization going forward…But I want to be clear on the fact that we are managing capacity down to demand. We'll continue to do that, and we're doing it as aggressively as any other alliance.'
The revised port fees will have the biggest impact on Chinese carriers like Cosco Shipping and its subsidiary Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL), with the former calling the penalties 'discriminatory.' The two carriers made over 1,300 U.S. port calls in the 12 months through March, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
This throws some wrenches into the plans of the Ocean Alliance, which is the shared network that also consists of CMA CGM and Evergreen. Those two carriers are likely to have a bigger presence on the trans-Pacific trade lane in place of Cosco and OOCL as the fees kick in.
While a shift in which vessels use certain service loops will prevent the company from having to pay fines, it would still put the wider alliance in a more precarious position to ensure service levels are not negatively affected.