This year’s fastest growing container line in geographic terms, China United Lines (CULines), is set to take its bow on the transpacific later this month.

CULines, best known as an intra-China and intra-Asia player, entered the Asia-Europe trade earlier this year, and has recently taken slots from Cosco to launch a service from China to Brazil.

Starting July 18, CULines will deploy five ships ranging in size from 1,700 to 4,400 teu on its new Trans-Pacific Express service (TPX) which will go direct from Shanghai to Los Angeles.

To begin with, CU Lines will provide two or three voyages per month, before making TPX a weekly service from September.

CULines has ordered six new ships at Chinese yards this year to go alongside its existing 19 vessels.