COSCO Shipping Holdings will start a third weekly Asia–East Coast South America string on or about 17 December 2026, lifting weekly capacity to three rotations ahead of the 2026/27 Brazilian soy and meat export peak.

The new ESA3 service will follow this rotation:

• Ningbo – Shanghai – Shekou – Singapore – Santos – Navegantes – Montevideo – Buenos Aires – Navegantes – Santos – Coega – Singapore – Hong Kong – Ningbo

The Coega call remains subject to terminal confirmation in October 2026. COSCO will review the Hong Kong call during the string's second voyage cycle.

What does the rotation deliver for Brazilian shippers?

The loop pairs two Santos calls per cycle with a Navegantes call each way, lifting direct capacity into three of the largest container gateways on the Brazilian East Coast. Feeder connections from Santos will cover Salvador and Vitória, extending the service into Northeast Brazil and Espírito Santo. A separate feeder out of Montevideo will serve Asunción.

How will inland networks absorb the additional calls?

COSCO will back the string with 193 trucking routes in Brazil, reaching industrial clusters around São Paulo and Minas Gerais alongside grain-producing regions including Mato Grosso. Cargo can also move by rail from Santos to inland terminals, supported by short-haul trucking at both ends.

In Argentina, COSCO operates 47 trucking routes covering Buenos Aires, Rosario, Córdoba and other inland markets, offering port-to-door and door-to-port connections. The new configuration will lift sailing frequency to Argentina and Uruguay for the first time on this trade.

Why does the Coega call matter?

If confirmed, the Coega call would open an additional corridor for South African agricultural and reefer exports moving to Southeast Asia and China via COSCO's network. A direct Asia link from the Eastern Cape would compress the door-to-door transit time that today runs through intermediate hub ports.

What are the commercial implications?

For shippers, a third weekly loop should ease the peak-season space tightness that has constrained Brazilian and Mercosur export volumes in recent Q1 windows. Forwarders gain direct weekly access to Montevideo and Buenos Aires without transshipment through Santos or Itajaí. The carrier's expanded Argentine trucking network extends the inland catchment to Rosario and Córdoba.

The Santos–Navegantes–Santos pairing concentrates two Brazilian port calls inside a single cycle, a configuration that simplifies export documentation for shippers moving mixed loads of soy, beef and coffee from multiple gateways in one booking.

If COSCO drops the Hong Kong call after the second cycle, the carrier would shorten rotation time and recover roughly two days per loop — buffer the operator could redeploy into tighter schedule recovery on a lane that often runs late during the southern-hemisphere export peak.

Watch the October 2026 terminal decision at Coega: a confirmed call would convert the ESA3 from a pure Far East–ECSA string into a tri-continental loop linking South African agricultural exports to consumers in Singapore and Shanghai.