Blue Star Media · Daily Brief · Thursday 27 August 2026

CMA CGM set out the reorganisation in mid July 2026, and it takes effect with the first sailing on 26 August. KORA EXPRESS is operated entirely by the carrier on a weekly basis with 4,200 TEU ships. The published rotation links Southampton, Vlissingen, Antwerp, Tanger Med, Algeciras, Tema, Lekki, Cotonou and Dakar, and the maiden voyage was performed by the Navios Verano out of Southampton. The carrier advertises a 15 day transit from Antwerp to Tema and describes it as the fastest on the market. That claim is the carrier's own and has not been independently verified.

The second half of the plan bears directly on Cameroon. EURAF 5 is repositioned on the southern range of West Africa, serving Tanger Med, Nouakchott, Kribi, Libreville, Pointe-Noire and Luanda. CMA CGM frames the pair as dedicated coverage by range, with the stated aim of improving transit times and offering more targeted routings. Kribi therefore now sits on a loop with only two upstream calls, Tanger Med and Nouakchott, where the earlier structure mixed both ranges in a single rotation.

The consequence for Douala deserves to be stated carefully. The note CMA CGM published on 17 January 2019, the only carrier document setting out both rotations in detail, placed Douala and Kribi on EURAF 4 and Libreville on EURAF 5. No updated EURAF 4 rotation was available on the carrier's site on the morning of 27 August 2026, and the July announcement does not mention that service. On the evidence available, it is not possible to say what becomes of the Douala call under the new structure. That is a question for the local agency rather than an inference from a press release.

The rate backdrop, by contrast, is documented. Drewry's composite World Container Index stood at $4,526 per 40ft container on 20 August 2026, up 4% on the week. The rise came from the Transpacific, where Shanghai to New York gained 9% to $9,507 and Shanghai to Los Angeles 9% to $6,802, while Asia to Europe eased slightly, to $4,955 for Genoa and $4,401 for Rotterdam. None of the eight east-west lanes in the index touches West Africa. They mark the state of the cycle, not a price applicable at Douala or Kribi.

The move belongs to a wider redistribution of the fleet. MSC has switched four east-west services, Tiger, Jade, Albatros and Himalaya, back through the canal. The MSC Tina left Mersin on 20 August on the Tiger service and the MSC Anna left Singapore four days later, while the MSC Michel Cappellini sailed from Abu Kir and the MSC Josefina from Jeddah on 24 August. According to Container News, each shortened rotation runs with two fewer ships, releasing up to eight vessels back into the market. Maersk moved earlier on an African loop: The Loadstar reports that the WAF6 service linking Salalah to West Africa returned to Suez routing from July 2026, cutting the rotation to 56 days. For the first time since late 2023, each of the world's five largest carriers has services committed to the Suez corridor.

One qualification belongs alongside that. This is a partial and selective return, not a settled normalisation. In its 20 August commentary Drewry notes that the memorandum between the United States and Iran on the Strait of Hormuz lapsed without a durable settlement, and that carriers are resuming only selected transits after reassessing security conditions. The same note records still elevated congestion at Shanghai and Rotterdam, with average waiting times of 32.3 and 25.0 hours in week 33.

Where the freed ships go is the open question. Alphaliner puts the Asia to West Africa trade up by roughly 347,500 TEU between May 2025 and May 2026, a rise of 34.4% year on year, with all Africa-related services up 576,100 TEU, or 25.3%. By mid December, services serving sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 8.1% of the global container fleet, about 2.68 million TEU. Container Trades Statistics puts inbound West African volumes up 22% in 2025 year on year, and 47% above 2019.

Capacity is no longer the binding constraint on this range. Schedule integrity is. The Port of Kribi handled 568,977 TEU to 31 December 2025 following the commissioning of its phase II, and the real test of the two-loop structure will be how it holds its schedule through the fourth quarter, when the Asian peak season and the Suez return coincide. Two habits are worth more than a forecast in the meantime: ask for the published rotation and the committed transit in writing at the point of booking, and do not carry the 15-day Antwerp to Tema figure across to the southern range, because it belongs to the northern range and to a different service.

Primary: CMA CGM, KORA EXPRESS launch and EURAF 5 repositioning, July 2026, first sailing of the Navios Verano from Southampton on 26 August 2026; CMA CGM, news no. 2375 of 17 January 2019, cited only as the historical EURAF 4 and EURAF 5 rotations; Drewry, World Container Index, 20 August 2026 assessment; Port of Kribi.

Secondary: Container News, 15 July 2026 and 25 August 2026; The Loadstar; Daily Cargo News, 21 August 2026; Alphaliner and Linerlytica; Container Trades Statistics.

Dollar figures are quoted as published by the indices cited. Any euro conversion would follow the fixed parity of 655.957 FCFA to 1 euro and would be flagged as a conversion.

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