Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd’s alliance has added more than 2 million containers to its Asian key port

”When we had signed up Gemini in the beginning of 2025, we knew that it was going to be a phenomenal ramp up,” says Mark Hardiman, chief executive at Malaysia’s biggest single port, Tanjung Pelepas, with reference to the Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd container alliance.

The port, with a current capacity at 15m teu, soon to be expanded to 16m containers, is strategically located at one of the world’s most critical waterways, the Strait of Malacca.

In fact, only 22 km by car from Singapore’s new mega port Tuas being inaugurated stepwise, with phase 1 already operational.

Tanjung Pelepas, the joint venture port owned by Malaysian MMC Group and APM Terminals with 70% and 30%, respectively, has taken a large leap forward by accommodating the majority of Gemini’s business in the Straits.

Appointed key port in Gemini Cooperation’s so-called hub-and-spoke model, it was clear that Tanjung Pelepas would benefit a lot from the East-West traffic brought by the Danish-German container alliance.

On the downside, Maersk’s former alliance partner, the Aponte family’s MSC, moved all its ocean-going activities to Singapore, leaving only intra-Asian traffic around the corner, in the Malaysian port.

”In 2024, we were the first single port in Malaysia to do more than 12 million teus. And then we jumped right up to 14 million in 2025 when the switch was turned. Phase out of 2M. And then the phase in of Gemini,” Mark Hardiman says and continues:

”Hapag-Lloyd was relatively new to us. We had very, very small volumes from them before Gemini. But, obviously, now it is our second biggest customer after Maersk. Without Gemini, we would probably have done 11.5m or 12m TEUs, but we did 14m in 2025, achieved on the very last day of the year.”

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Source:ShippingWatch