Container shipping lines are shifting more of their all-water services from Asia to the U.S. East Coast to the Suez Canal route, instead of sailing through the Panama Canal, to take advantage of lower slot costs they can realize on the big post-Panamax ships they are cascading onto the route from the Asia-Europe trade. "Maersk Line will send through Suez Canal a vessel that can carry as many as 9,000 20-foot boxes at a time, instead of using two 4,500-box-vessels through Panama Canal", Soeren Skou, chief executive officer said. “The economics are much, much better via the Suez Canal simply because you have half the number of ships,” Skou said. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-11/maersk-line-to-dump-panama-canal-for-suez-as-ships-get-bigger.html Rising tolls and economies of scale have pushed lines that service Asia to the US east coast to choose the Suez route. http://www.tradewindsnews.com/weekly/342068/Suez-overtakes-Panama-Canal-on-key-container-route

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Container shipping lines are shifting more of their all-water services from Asia to the U.S. East Coast to the Suez Canal route, instead of sailing through the Panama Canal, to take advantage of lower slot costs they can realize on the big post-Panamax ships they are cascading onto the route from the Asia-Europe trade. "Maersk Line will send through Suez Canal a vessel that can carry as many as 9,000 20-foot boxes at a time, instead of using two 4,500-box-vessels through Panama Canal", Soeren Skou, chief executive officer said. “The economics are much, much better via the Suez Canal simply because you have half the number of ships,” Skou said. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-11/maersk-line-to-dump-panama-canal-for-suez-as-ships-get-bigger.html Rising tolls and economies of scale have pushed lines that service Asia to the US east coast to choose the Suez route. http://www.tradewindsnews.com/weekly/342068/Suez-overtakes-Panama-Canal-on-key-container-route