Aliança drops Sepetiba call, moves ALCT1 to Rio de Janeiro from 4 December

Aliança, Maersk's Brazilian shipping subsidiary, will replace its Sepetiba call with Rio de Janeiro on the domestic cabotage ALCT1 service, effective 4 December 2026.

The switch ends the carrier's operations at Sepetiba in Itaguaí and moves the Rio-area port call to Rio Brasil Terminal in the Port of Rio de Janeiro. The final scheduled departure from Sepetiba will be performed by the vessel Sebastiao Caboto on voyage 648N, departing 27 November. Pedro Alvares Cabral, voyage 649N, will then make the first scheduled departure from Rio Brasil Terminal on 4 December, closing a gap of just one week between the last old-port sailing and the first new-port sailing.

What stays the same?

Quite a lot, according to the carrier. Maersk said the adjustment was intended to support the continuity and reliability of the service, and confirmed there would be no changes to vessel deployment, frequency, schedules or operational capacity.

The service continues to operate with four container vessels, maintaining its weekly frequency. Maersk markets the loop as G1D; Aliança runs it as ALCT1. For shippers, that means the same tonnage, the same weekly cadence and — on paper at least — the same slot availability as before the port change.

The caveat is routine but worth stating: continuity commitments are made at the time of a network revision, and any terminal change of this kind carries transition risk in its first sailings, however carefully sequenced the vessel handover appears.

What does the new rotation look like?

According to DynaLiners, the revised port rotation will be:

• Rio de Janeiro
• Itapoá
• Santos
• Salvador
• Suape
• Pecém
• Manaus
• Pecém
• Suape
• Rio de Janeiro

The loop connects ports across southern, southeastern, northeastern and northern Brazil, providing domestic container shipping connections along the country's coastline. That geographic spread makes it one of the few weekly services linking the Amazon gateway of Manaus with the industrial southeast, so even a single-terminal change at the Rio end touches a long domestic supply chain.

What does it mean for shippers?

For cargo owners using Sepetiba, the practical consequence is a landside one: import and export haulage must now be planned to and from Rio Brasil Terminal rather than Itaguaí, a shift that can alter trucking distances, costs and inland transit times depending on where cargo originates. The source does not say whether any pre-existing Sepetiba bookings will be handled at the new terminal or transitioned in any particular way — a detail shippers will want confirmed with the carrier directly.

For the ports themselves, the move redistributes cabotage volumes within the Rio de Janeiro port complex, away from Sepetiba in Itaguaí and toward Rio Brasil Terminal. The service's overall structure is preserved; the network maintains its existing domestic cabotage coverage while shifting the Rio-area call to a different terminal.

For forwarders and BCOs booking domestic Brazil container moves, the message from Maersk is one of operational continuity: same four vessels, same weekly service, same schedules and capacity. The execution test comes on 4 December, when Pedro Alvares Cabral sails from Rio Brasil Terminal on voyage 649N and the revised rotation begins in earnest.