The Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) wants some more information about the looming container shipping alliance between Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd.

This request effectively pushes back the initial date the Gemini Cooperation would have gone into effect, with was scheduled for Monday. Gemini’s operational implementation is still expected for February 2025.

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More information is needed to determine the potential competitive impacts of the arrangement, the commission says. The FMC does not publicly reveal the information that it is requesting.

The commission says it uses the information request process to identify and achieve clarity on matters that were not addressed by the filing parties “or where insufficient information was provided in the originally filed agreement.”

According to the agency, the Gemini Cooperation proposal “lacks sufficient detail to allow for a complete analysis of its potential competitive impacts.”

The agreement authorizes the ocean carriers to share vessels on their trade lanes between the United States, Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

The alliance’s mainline network, which directly serves major ports, will share 123 vessels with nominal capacities ranging from approximately 3,700 to 16,000 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs). The parties are authorized to operate up to 175 vessels on the mainline network, each with a capacity of up to 24,000 TEUs. In total cooperation’s network will consist of 26 mainline service lines worldwide.

Shuttle services outside the direct mainline network are also offered as part of the cooperation, with Maersk contributing all the vessels. Initially, the shuttle network shall consist of one service of two vessels with nominal capacities of approximately 2,800 TEUs. The network is authorized to operate up to three services of up to three vessels each, each such vessel having a capacity of up to 5,000 TEUs.

Ocean carrier alliances like Gemini Cooperation are designed to expand container shipping lines’ global service and capacity levels and enable more containers to be moved at a time, all while cutting costs through sharing port terminals and inland logistics networks.

Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd are positioning the collaboration’s selling point around schedule reliability, with the shipping companies setting an initial target to deliver schedule reliability rates of above 90 percent once the network is fully phased in. The partnership would mandate either Maersk or Hapag-Lloyd to act as the sole operator of a vessel on a mainline service to reduce complexity on the routes.