COSCO Shipping

China COSCO Shipping Corporation Limited, commonly branded COSCO SHIPPING, is a Shanghai-headquartered Chinese state-owned maritime group formed in 2016 through the merger of the COSCO and China Shipping groups. An official COSCO-affiliated history records that the merger established China COSCO Shipping Corporation Limited and that related companies were subsequently reorganized under the new group. [1]

COSCO SHIPPING’s operating network is organized through specialist businesses rather than a single shipping company. COSCO SHIPPING Lines handles domestic and international container shipping and related services; COSCO SHIPPING Ports operates and manages container terminals and other port assets; and COSCO SHIPPING Energy Transportation focuses on oil, liquefied natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas, and chemical shipping. These entities are part of the wider group but remain separately identified operating companies. [2] [3] [4]

COSCO SHIPPING Lines was formed by integrating the container businesses of COSCO Container Lines and China Shipping Container Lines and began operating on March 1, 2016. Its stated scope includes maritime container transport, space booking, ship chartering, shipping-related onshore industries, warehousing, cargo through-transport, and related information and service activities; its profile identifies Shanghai as its headquarters and lists domestic and overseas branches. [2]

The port business provides the physical nodes that connect those shipping services with inland and international logistics. COSCO SHIPPING Ports says that, as of December 31, 2025, it operated and managed 387 berths at 40 ports globally, including 238 container berths, with annual handling capacity of approximately 133 million twenty-foot-equivalent units. Its portfolio spans China’s major coastal port regions and locations in Europe, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, South America, and Africa. [3]

COSCO SHIPPING’s relevance to partnership records therefore depends on identifying the correct group company. For the historical Pacific Maritime Services record at Long Beach, a Federal Maritime Commission filing states that COSCO Container Lines was to enter a terminal-services agreement with Pacific Maritime Services for container terminal services in the Port of Long Beach. That filing names a predecessor container-line entity, so it should not be treated as proof that every COSCO SHIPPING subsidiary or the parent corporation is the same contracting party. [5]