COSCO Shipping

SCAC COSU · Shanghai, China · founded 1961 · Ocean Alliance

COSCO Shipping (legal entity COSCO Shipping Lines Co., Ltd.) is a mega-carrier headquartered in Shanghai, China. Founded in 1961, the line has spent 65 years building out its container service network and today operates a fleet of 528 vessels under the SCAC code COSU. Total operated capacity stands near 3,200,000 TEU, placing the carrier among the recognised operators on its core trade lanes. The company holds intermodal equipment under 6 registered ISO 6346 owner prefixes, which appear on every box it owns or long-term leases.

COSCO Shipping is most active on the following corridors: Asia-Europe, Transpacific, Asia-Mediterranean, Intra-Asia. Through its membership of the Ocean Alliance, the carrier shares vessel capacity with CMA CGM, Evergreen Marine, OOCL on East-West services. Direct customer contact is available via +86 21 3501 8888 or the carrier's web portal at lines.coscoshipping.com.

COSCO Shipping container prefixes

Every intermodal container carries an ISO 6346 owner code — three letters identifying the owner, plus a single category letter (almost always U for freight containers). These four-letter prefixes are the fastest way to identify which carrier controls a given box. COSCO Shipping has the following registered prefixes recorded in the BIC database. If a container in your possession begins with any of these codes, the box is owned by or leased on long term to COSCO Shipping.

• CBHU
• COSU
• CCLU
• CSNU
• CSLU
• CSWU

To track a container under one of these prefixes, contact the carrier directly using the bill-of-lading number or container number. Most ocean carriers expose a public tracking endpoint on their website that accepts either format. COSCO Shipping publishes its tracking page under the main lines.coscoshipping.com domain.

COSCO Shipping sample transit times

Indicative point-to-point transit times for services on which COSCO Shipping appears in rotation. Actual ETAs vary with vessel rotation, port congestion, weather and trans-shipment patterns. We update these figures every quarter against published carrier schedules.

See all 8 corridors served by COSCO Shipping →

How to track a COSCO Shipping container

Tracking a COSCO Shipping container starts with confirming the prefix. Look at the container's left-hand corner casting plate or the painted code on the door — the four-letter ISO 6346 owner code (e.g. CBHU) is followed by six numeric digits and a single check digit. If the prefix matches one in the list above, the box is on a COSCO Shipping bill of lading. Visit lines.coscoshipping.com, navigate to the carrier's tracking or "track and trace" portal, and paste the full container number. The portal will return current vessel position, the next scheduled port call, the estimated time of arrival (ETA) and the most recent equipment events such as gate-in, loaded, discharged and gate-out.

If the carrier portal does not return a result, the most likely causes are: the container has not yet been gate-in at the origin terminal, the bill of lading number is in a different format (check whether the system expects an MBL versus an HBL), or the box is moving on a partner alliance vessel rather than a COSCO Shipping hull. In the last case, the prefix still resolves to COSCO Shipping as equipment owner but the schedule data lives with the operating carrier. COSCO Shipping's customer service can normally cross-reference the booking and route you to the correct alliance partner. Reach the carrier on +86 21 3501 8888 during European business hours.

Related ocean carriers

Operators most often compared with COSCO Shipping on overlapping trade lanes:

• CMA CGM — Marseille, France, founded 1978. SCAC CMDU.
• Evergreen Marine — Taoyuan, Taiwan, founded 1968. SCAC EGLV.
• OOCL — Hong Kong, founded 1969. SCAC OOLU.
• China United Lines — Shanghai, China, founded 2018. SCAC CULU.
• ANL — Melbourne, Australia, founded 1956. SCAC ANNU.
• Sinotrans Container Lines — Shanghai, China, founded 1992. SCAC SNLT.