OOCL operations in 2026
Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) is headquartered in Hong Kong and has been a wholly-owned COSCO subsidiary since July 2018, an acquisition of approximately USD 6.3 billion. OOCL retains its own brand, its own IT systems, its own SCAC (OOLU, never COSU), and its own portals. The COSCO page already warns forwarders that the two carriers are not interchangeable; this page is the OOCL side of that line. Bookings, SIs, and BLs for OOCL flow through OOCL systems end to end.
Ocean Alliance. OOCL sails in the Ocean Alliance as part of the COSCO group; together the two form the alliance's largest ownership group by combined TEU, while CMA CGM remains the largest single-entity member. The Day 10 Product (April 2026) deploys approximately 394 vessels (~5.3 million TEU) across 41 weekly services covering 520+ direct port pairs. An OOCL booking may sail on COSCO, CMA CGM, or Evergreen tonnage; the booking confirmation names the operating carrier.
Schedule reliability. Sea-Intelligence GLP #177 (April 2026, ALL arrivals) puts Ocean Alliance reliability at 67.6%. That is an alliance-level figure; no OOCL carrier-level reliability figure is published.
Section 301 (watchpoint). OOCL is in scope of the USTR Section 301 port-call fees as part of the COSCO group and accrued fees in the 14 October to 9 November 2025 window (a reported ~USD 43 million week-one figure for COSCO and OOCL combined). The fees are suspended from 10 November 2025 through 9 November 2026, subject to extension or change. Forwarders booking US trades should treat the suspension expiry as a watchpoint, not a fixed future fact. The COSCO page carries the full Section 301 breakdown.
What Expedion handles for OOCL
All five operational workflows, on one page.
Booking. FreightSmart (freightsmart.oocl.com) is the digital front door. E-Spot covers instant spot bookings at a fixed rate with locked surcharges, space protection on the named OOCL sailing, equipment priority, and a 24-hour cooling-off cancellation window; OOCL's published terms attach no compensation mechanism to the space guarantee. E-Quote handles quote-then-book requests with more flexibility. Contract bookings run through My OOCL Center and EDI, with the standard Ocean Alliance operating-carrier caveat.
Shipping instructions. eSI through MOC offers templates, copy-from-shipment, and direct-to-system entry, with automatic email confirmation within 1 hour of SI receipt (subscription required). EDI covers TMS-integrated flows. Email fallback uses destination-specific addresses and attracts a Manual SI fee. Post-cutoff amendments incur a non-waivable Amendment Fee; late SIs are accepted case by case by email application.
Bill of lading. Draft BL timing depends on channel and destination: 1 working day for eSI submissions, and 4 working hours after vessel departure for USA, Canada, Europe, and Japan shipments. OOCL's Hong Kong customer service guide commits to BL amendments within 2 working hours of an emailed markup. For electronic BLs, OOCL issues on the IQAX eBL rail on GSBN and completed among the first cross-platform eBL transactions in March 2025, between IQAX and ICE CargoDocs.
Documentation. VGM, DG declarations, and advance manifest filings: AMS under the OOLU SCAC for the US, ACI for Canada, and ICS2 F-filings for the EU. Carrier-level DG penalty and approval-SLA figures are not confirmed in public sources for OOCL; agents flag those as gaps for the reviewer rather than porting another carrier's figures.
Tracking. MOC tracking covers container, BL, and booking-reference queries. There is no DCSA Track & Trace API for OOLU because OOCL is not a DCSA member; programmatic tracking runs through EDI IFTSTA and portal sessions. On alliance legs, milestone events originate from the operating carrier's system, so agents identify the operating carrier per booking and reconcile milestones accordingly.
OOCL's published fee schedules are regional: Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou local-surcharge pages and their equivalents elsewhere. Amendment and Manual SI fee amounts sit behind regional tariff pages, and the surcharge codes themselves vary by region. Pages on this site cite validated figures only and mark un-sourced geographies as gaps rather than inventing numbers.
TMS compatibility
Expedion agents operate OOCL workflows on top of your existing TMS, connecting through EDI and My OOCL Center browser sessions. There is no DCSA API path for OOLU because OOCL is not a DCSA member, so portal-and-EDI is the integration pattern across the board. Your system of record stays intact.
Frequently asked questions
Is OOCL the same as COSCO?
No. OOCL (Orient Overseas Container Line) is a wholly-owned COSCO subsidiary, acquired in July 2018 for approximately USD 6.3 billion, and it retains its own brand, Hong Kong headquarters, separate IT systems, separate SCAC (OOLU, not COSU), and separate customer portals: My OOCL Center and FreightSmart, not COSCO's SynCon Hub. The two share an ownership group, the Ocean Alliance, and Section 301 exposure, but booking, SI, and BL workflows flow through entirely separate systems. Expedion treats OOCL as a distinct carrier.
Does OOCL have a DCSA Track & Trace API?
No. OOCL is not a DCSA member, unlike all seven Tier 1 carriers covered on this site, so there is no DCSA Track & Trace endpoint for OOLU. Programmatic integration runs through EDI, My OOCL Center sessions, and GSBN for electronic bills of lading. Expedion agents work those channels directly and apply operating-carrier-aware milestone handling on Ocean Alliance legs.
What is FreightSmart and how is it different from My OOCL Center?
FreightSmart (freightsmart.oocl.com) is OOCL's quote-and-book storefront: E-Spot for instant spot bookings at fixed rates with space protection, and E-Quote for quote-then-book requests. My OOCL Center is the operational workspace where shipments are worked: shipping instructions, draft BLs and amendments, and tracking. A booking may start on FreightSmart; the documentation cycle runs through MOC.