THE Alliance vessels have been sailing around the Cape of Good Hope, rather than via the Suez Canal – but are still beating rival carriers in carbon emission reductions, according to Xeneta’s latest data.

Yang Ming, recently the surprise winner in Xeneta’s emissions study of the Asia-Europe tradelane, is now touted as the top carrier on the Europe-Asia backhaul as well.

Yang Ming, with a Carbon Efficiency Index (CEI) score of 80.4, beat CMA CGM’s 88.3, HMM’s 89.4 and MSC’ 124.4, despite the fact that its ships are going further, via the Cape, which could be expected to increase CO2 emissions.

Xeneta was asked on social media: “…could you elaborate on how adding two weeks of sailing and roughly 1,000 tons of fuel consumption goes hand in hand with a better scoring?”

Market analyst Emily Stausbøll told The Loadstar: “It is more to do with slow-steaming… regardless of whether ships are going through the canal or around C:Usersksp_rodgersAppDataRoamingFoxmail7Temp-13148-20230506095539Africa, they have slowed down enough to make up for it.”

The extraordinary ability of ships to reduce fuel burn and CO2 emissC:Usersksp_rodgersAppDataRoamingFoxmail7Temp-13148-20230506095539ions if they slow down is well documented. However, in theory, this would create a shortage of capacity, bringing more ships and more fuel-burning engines into the trade.