After being absent from the port for four years, it was announced last week that CMA CGM vessels would be calling here again. A new Anzex service that will eventually be weekly and employ seven vessels operating from the hub port of Port Kelang will begin with the sailing of Anglia.
The rotation from Kelang will be Chiwan, Shanghai, Pusan, Suva, Auckland, Port Chalmers, Lyttelton, Tauranga, Noumea, Kelang.
Anglia is a 27,047gt vessel on charter from the Ahrenkiel group of Hamburg. With a capacity of 2206teu, including 350 reefers, it is one of the CSBS 2200-type vessels built at Kaohsuing by the China Shipbuilding Corporation.
It has carried a few names since being built in 1999, and from 2003-04 was on charter to Hamburg-Sud as the second Columbus Australia.
CMA CGM's earlier link with the port only lasted from April, 2006, to April, 2007, and five visits by the chartered CMA CGM Melbourne, and two by CMA CGM Auckland (also chartered).
The company-owned CMA CGM Utrillo was of special interest in being the first Kerguelan Islands-registered ship to call here.
While its first two visits were made showing Port-aux-Francais as the port of registry, the ship had been transferred to the flag of the Bahamas by the time it made its third and final call in October 2006.
The earlier association was a joint venture with Germany's Hapag-Lloyd, and came about after Maersk bought out P&O Nedlloyd late in 2005. This led to the round-the-world service being scrapped.
One of the affected 4100s built for the service as P&O Nedlloyd Pegasus was renamed Sydney Express early in 2003. Although not owned by the company, it succeeded in keeping the Hapag-Lloyd name alive in the New Zealand-European trade.
Early in 2006, Hapag-Lloyd and CMA CGM introduced their Suez loop service to New Zealand, out and back via the Suez Canal. The French line pulled out of this venture in 2007 and replaced it with their NEMO service As for Hapag-Lloyd, it has been out of here since the end of 2008.
CMA CGM can trace its link with this harbour back to when Cie Messageries Maritimes' 6936gt Godavery visited Dunedin on May 12, 1963. A further 19 units of the fleet called here up to August 1977, mainly to load wool.
Then, on April 24, 1978, the 26,437gt, 1490teu Kangourou made the first of 14 visits up to November 12, 1988. This 1970-built steamer was replaced by the larger 36,343gt, 2505teu CGM La Perouse, which made the first of seven calls on December 7, 1988.
After CGM renamed the vessel La Fontaine in 1991, it revisited Port Chalmers on April 10, 1992, on charter to P&O.
About the time Kangourou first called here, Messageries Maritimes had merged with Cie Generale Transatlantique to become the state-owned Compagnie Generale Maritime (CGM).
When CGM was privatised in 1996 it was sold to the Jacques Saade-headed Compagnie Maritime dAffretement (CMA), a company created in 1978. CMA CGM is now the world's third- largest container ship operator.
Its subsidiaries include the former Australian National Line (ANL), which was acquired in 1998.
Under French ownership, its only local presence has been through visits by ANL's Esprit, Progress and Yarrunga, from 2004-06.
Having apparently got over its recent financial problems, CMA CGM has entered the big league by upgrading six existing container ship orders to 16,000teu.
