MARSEILLE: September 18, 2019. CMA CGM has launched a weekly box service between the Black Sea, Turkey, Morocco and Spain (BSMAR) with connections to the rest of the world via its hub in Malta.

The calls include Odessa, Constanta, Ambarli, Aliaga, Piraeus, Malta, Valencia, Algeciras and Casablanca using four 2,5000 TEU vessels with a large number of reefer plus.

CMA CGM says its new short-sea BSMAR service adds to a regional Mediterranean network that now has 31 services operating 61 vessels and making 250 calls per week.

Containerships, the CMA CGM European short-sea box line subsidiary, has taken delivery of an LNG-powered 1,380 TEU container vessel Containerships Aurora, the third of four similar ships to join its revised BALT 3 service by the end of the year.

Containerships is the first European operator to use LNG as the main fuel source across a fleet bunkered at the Port of Rotterdam.

In a new sailing schedule published this week, the company has added a second weekly link from Lübeck and Aarhus to Helsinki and St. Petersburg; improved the frequency and reduced transit times from the Baltic States to Britain and Continental Europe; begun five weekly sailings from Poland to Britain with three sailings to Teesport and two to Tilbury; and increased capacity on a weekly service from Lithuania and Poland to Norway, with transshipment from Russia, Estonia and Latvia.