Blue Water Facts Liner intelligence

Liner intelligence · Updated 2026-07-06

Identify any ocean container in seconds.

Blue Water Facts is the working reference for shippers, NVOCCs and forwarders. We profile 265 ocean carriers, 34 trade-lane corridors, 6 alliances and every standard ISO container format — with transit times and routing intelligence you can act on.

Browse 265 carriers Browse trade lanes
265
Liner profiles
34
Corridor reports
15
Container formats

See our data-accuracy findings, including what we removed and why →

The independent reference for ocean liner shipping

Every export shipment moves under a paper trail of three letters and a check digit. Those four-letter container prefixes — the ISO 6346 owner code — tell you who actually owns the box, who controls the equipment, and which carrier you should call when the container goes missing. Blue Water Facts previously published a per-carrier owner-prefix registry. In July 2026 an internal audit found that most of the long-tail codes could not be independently verified against the Bureau International des Containers, so we removed that per-carrier list rather than keep publishing unverified codes (see /accuracy/ for the full findings). We still profile 265 ocean carriers spanning the global majors, regional intra-Asia operators, Mediterranean feeders, niche reefer specialists and the dozens of NVOCC brands active in the trade -- each profile covers fleet size, headquarters, alliance membership and the trade lanes they actually call.

Ocean shipping is an opaque industry, but it does not have to be. We publish working route corridors with realistic transit days, port-pair frequency information, and the complete carrier rotation that calls each pair. We document every standard ISO container format from a 20' general purpose dry box up to a 40' high-cube reefer, with internal dimensions, payload limits and cubic capacity drawn from the IICL and ISO 668 standard. And we cover the ocean alliances — the Gemini Cooperation, Premier Alliance, Ocean Alliance, MSC Standalone Network — that determine which vessels carry your cargo on the East-West trades.

Blue Water Facts is built for working professionals: forwarders triaging a tracking ticket, supply-chain analysts modelling capacity scenarios, ocean carrier sales teams checking competitor coverage on a corridor, and the long tail of independent NVOCCs who need to verify a partner's footprint before signing a service contract.

Container ship berthed at a port terminal beneath gantry cranes
Container terminal gantry cranes loading an ocean carrier — illustrative photo.

Browse ocean carriers

Click through to any carrier for a full profile: fleet capacity, alliance status, head office, contact details and the corridors they operate.

Denmark Maersk Line 707 vessels · 4,300,000 TEU Switzerland MSC 875 vessels · 6,500,000 TEU France CMA CGM 644 vessels · 3,850,000 TEU China COSCO Shipping 528 vessels · 3,200,000 TEU Germany Hapag-Lloyd 308 vessels · 2,300,000 TEU Singapore Ocean Network Express 244 vessels · 1,900,000 TEU Taiwan Evergreen Marine 215 vessels · 1,750,000 TEU Taiwan Yang Ming 91 vessels · 720,000 TEU South Korea HMM 75 vessels · 850,000 TEU Israel ZIM 137 vessels · 770,000 TEU Hong Kong OOCL 105 vessels · 855,000 TEU Taiwan Wan Hai Lines 153 vessels · 470,000 TEU Singapore Pacific International Lines 88 vessels · 270,000 TEU South Korea KMTC Line 70 vessels · 165,000 TEU South Korea Sinokor Merchant Marine 64 vessels · 145,000 TEU Hong Kong TS Lines 50 vessels · 130,000 TEU South Korea SM Line 38 vessels · 75,000 TEU Thailand RCL Feeder 49 vessels · 80,000 TEU Singapore X-Press Feeders 100 vessels · 175,000 TEU China China United Lines 36 vessels · 90,000 TEU Australia ANL 35 vessels · 85,000 TEU New Zealand Neptune Pacific Direct Line 14 vessels · 18,000 TEU Singapore Swire Shipping 35 vessels · 55,000 TEU USA Matson 30 vessels · 47,000 TEU

See all 265 ocean carriers →

Featured trade-lane corridors

Corridor reports cover door-to-door transit times, sailing frequency, the carriers in rotation, distance in nautical miles and which port-pair combinations consistently outperform.

Asia-Europe Shanghai, China → Rotterdam, Netherlands 32 days · Daily sailings via 7 services Asia-Europe Ningbo, China → Hamburg, Germany 35 days · Multiple weekly Asia-Europe Shenzhen, China → Felixstowe, United Kingdom 30 days · Weekly Asia-Europe Qingdao, China → Antwerp, Belgium 36 days · Weekly Asia-Europe Yantian, China → Le Havre, France 33 days · Weekly Asia-Mediterranean Shanghai, China → Piraeus, Greece 28 days · Weekly Asia-Mediterranean Ningbo, China → Genoa, Italy 30 days · Weekly Transpacific Shanghai, China → Los Angeles, USA 14 days · Daily sailings Transpacific Shanghai, China → Long Beach, USA 14 days · Daily

Container formats reference

The standard inventory of intermodal boxes — 20' GP, 40' GP, 40' HC, reefers, open tops, flat racks, ISO tanks and bulk containers — with the dimensions every shipper needs to plan a load.

22G1 20' General Purpose Dry Container 33.2 m³ · 28,230 kg payload 42G1 40' General Purpose Dry Container 67.7 m³ · 28,800 kg payload 45G1 40' High Cube Dry Container 76.4 m³ · 28,560 kg payload L5G1 45' High Cube Dry Container 86.1 m³ · 27,600 kg payload 22R1 20' Refrigerated Container 28.3 m³ · 27,700 kg payload 42R1 40' Refrigerated Container 59.5 m³ · 29,150 kg payload 45R1 40' High Cube Refrigerated Container 67.5 m³ · 29,520 kg payload 22U1 20' Open Top Container 32.4 m³ · 28,080 kg payload