COSCO Shipping Lines

In April 1961 China's Ministry of Communications's the Ocean Shipping Bureau established China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) as a state-owned ocean shipping enterprise in Beijing. In 1964 China Ocean Shipping Co. established a subsidiary in Shanghai, COSCO Shanghai, which would later specialize in container shipping. COSCO Shanghai was the predecessor of COSCO SHIPPING Lines.

In 1978, COSCO Shanghai's MV Ping Xiang Cheng sailed with 162 TEU from Shanghai to Sydney, Australia, which was China's first international ocean container service.[1]^:56[2][3][1][4] COSCO Shanghai commenced a monthly container service running two 200 TEU container ships between Shanghai, Xingang, Sydney, and Melbourne.

In 1982 COSCO Shanghai began regular trans-Pacific container services and in 1983 COSCO Shanghai started a new container trade route connecting Tianjin Port and Shanghai with ports in West Europe.[2]

Container ship COSCO Hamburg, San Francisco, California, 2007

In 1994 COSCO Group was restructured. COSCO Container Line Limited (COSCON), was formed in Beijing to conduct the group's container operations in collaboration with regional COSCO subsidiaries such as the Shanghai branch. In November 1997, COSCO Container Line Limited merged with COSCO Shanghai and became the sole container shipping subsidiary of COSCO Group.[2][5][6]

COSCO Container Lines opened its North American operations in Secaucus, NJ in 1993. COSCO Container Lines Americas built a large intermodal network in the US. The company invested in thousands of marine container chassis. COSCO Container Lines Americas also contracted with trucking companies and with major North American railroads.[7]

In July 2007, COSCO Container Lines named the 10,000 TEU COSCO Asia at HHI shipyard in Ulsan. It was the largest container ship in COSCO's fleet at the time and the company later took delivery of three other 10,000 TEU ships. The 10,000 TEU vessels were highly automated and classed by Lloyd's Register to the highest environmental safety standards.[8]

By December 2013, the trans-Pacific service generated the most revenue for COSCO Container Lines, RMB 14.2 million.[9] COSCO Container Lines was China's largest container line.[1]

COSCO SHIPPING container in transport on an intermodal freight train

In March 2016 COSCO Container Lines' parent company, COSCO Group, merged with China Shipping Group. COSCO Container Lines acquired the assets of China Shipping Container Lines, the container shipping subsidiary of China Shipping Group and China's second largest container line. COSCO Container Lines was renamed COSCO SHIPPING Lines. After the integration with China Shipping Container Lines, COSCO has 502 container ships with 3.0 million TEU. The company has 255 international routes, calling at 356 ports in 105 countries.[10] COSCO SHIPPING Lines has ordered several mega-ships, such as the 20,000 TEU COSCO SHIPPING Taurus and the 21,000 TEU Universe-class container ships.

On June 26, 2016, MV COSCO SHIPPING Panama became the first vessel to sail through the newly widened Panama Canal.[11][12] Over 5,000 people attended the event.[13]

COSCO SHIPPING Nebula at Euromax terminal, December 17, 2019

From the late 1990s to 2016 COSCO Container Lines was a member of the CKYHE alliance, a pooling agreement to share vessel space with "K" Line, Yang Ming, Hanjin, and Evergreen. In April 2016, COSCO SHIPPING Lines left the CKYHE alliance and formed a new 5-year vessel-sharing contract, the Ocean Alliance, along with CMA CGM, OOCL, and Evergreen Line.[14][15]

On July 24, 2018, COSCO SHIPPING Lines reported a cyber attack to its operations in the United States, Canada, and South America.[16][17][18] COSCO later reported that the attack caused minimal disruption to its operations.[19]

In 2018, COSCO SHIPPING Holdings acquired Hong Kong-based OOIL, the parent of OOCL, for US$6.3 billion.[20][21] After integration with the OOCL container fleet, COSCO SHIPPING Lines became the world's third largest container line in terms of vessel capacity.