General

Congestion worsens-427 container ships line up for berths! Equivalent to 2.91 million TEU capacity idle

The latest data from Vessels Value shows that there are currently 427 container ships waiting in line for berths in global ports, an increase of 14% from the 376 in early September. The company said that more and more ships are heading to the port, so there is no sign of improvement.

According to the latest data from the container transportation platform, as ports on all continents are facing operational interruptions, as of September 24, there are more than 609 carriers berthed outside the ports.

Seeing no signs of improvement, shipping companies and their customers looked around for opportunities to reduce delays and bottlenecks in major ports. On the contrary, the latest data from the analysis company Vessels Value shows that there are currently 427 container ships (equivalent to 2914445 TEU of capacity) waiting in line for berths outside major ports around the world.

The container port in Long Beach, California, was particularly hard hit. "The congestion in the port is now very serious. Because the anchorage is saturated, ships have to drift in the nearby Santa Monica Bay or beyond. The docking time of the port increases as the waiting time of the ships increases, and the port must do its best to handle the cargo volume. And to improve the turnaround time, its operating time is also extending.” said Charlotte Cook, chief trade analyst at Vessel Value.

Currently, there are 67 ships queuing outside the Port of Long Beach, more than double the number at the beginning of September. According to Vessel Value, the ship with the longest waiting time has reached 22 days.

According to the latest data from the signal platform of the Port of Los Angeles on the 24th, there are currently 29 container ships waiting for berths at the Los Angeles anchorage alone, 14 ships waiting outside the port, and 43 ships waiting, on average. The berthing time increased sharply from 9.0 days 3 days ago to 9.5 days.

★ Asian ports are also hit ★

At the same time, congestion bottlenecks in Asian ports are getting worse. A total of 74 ships lined up outside Ningbo/Zhoushan Port, equivalent to a capacity of 306,538 TEU, an increase of 48% in just one week. "Ningbo has experienced terminal closures and severe weather in recent months, which has exacerbated port congestion," Cook added. "Currently, there is a serious shortage of export containers, and the time for empty containers to return and fully load products is much longer than normal."

In order to get rid of the bottleneck, some import ports have cancelled the priority loading of empty containers, which may cause problems in the coming months-the cancellation of cargo shipments from Asia due to the shortage of containers. Cook expects that the number of ships waiting at the port will continue to increase, thereby exacerbating the lack of available ship capacity. At present, the freight market is entering the busiest period of the year, until Black Friday and Christmas.

"In addition to the number of ships currently waiting, we also see a large number of ships still on their way to these locations, which indicates that it will take some time to clear this congestion, and the interruption may continue until 2022." Cook said. Vessel Value believes that this severe congestion is a side effect of the recovery of the world economy after the new crown epidemic. These problems are caused by factors such as increased demand, terminal closures, lack of available labor, and shortage of container ships.

The shipping crisis continues to intensify! The Port of Long Beach in the United States implements 24-hour operations, but the Port of Los Angeles refuses!

The United States is undoubtedly facing an unprecedented shipping crisis. The congestion of containers at ports and railway stations continues to deteriorate, and there is almost no sign of relief. In response, the US Biden government even set up a working group specifically for supply chain issues, involving stakeholders to solve the bottleneck problem of the supply chain from the port to the entire inland distribution system.

Encouraged by the Biden administration, the Port of Long Beach in the United States has now decided to operate 24 hours a day from Monday to Thursday (previously, the operating time was 16 hours). Mario Cordero, executive director of the Port of Long Beach, said that it supports the 24-hour operation plan because the congestion situation is becoming more and more serious this year.

Cordero said in a statement that the Port of Long Beach is taking "bold and swift action to help the supply chain" and expects that it may eventually extend its 24-hour operation to 7 days a week.

According to Noel Hacegaba, deputy director of the Long Beach Port Authority, this new initiative requires the opening of gates between 2 am and 7 am, thus creating a new era of all-weather port operations. Officials also hope that the concept of all-day operations can be applied to shippers and trucks. The driver takes root in his heart.

"In view of the current cargo volume, each link of the supply chain needs to maximize the operating time. The Port of Long Beach is moving towards an all-weather supply chain. The goal of our pilot program is to open the gates overnight while driving warehouses and truck companies overnight. Operation," Hacegaba pointed out.

However, in stark contrast to the Port of Long Beach’s active response to the call of the US government and its 24-hour operation, its neighbor, the Port of Los Angeles, currently has no specific plan to extend its opening hours, but emphasizes that it will focus on improving operational efficiency in response to the United States. The surge in imports of important trade portals.

Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, said that the system connecting inbound and outbound containers with trucks serving inland distribution points has loopholes. Although dozens of container ships are currently waiting for berths at sea, and the number of inbound containers handled by the port terminals has set a record, on average, 30% of the cargo reservations are still not fully used every day.

"If these vulnerabilities are still not enough after resolution, we will consider extending working hours," Seroka said, "but first I want to deal with the current problems in our work."

Seroka also added, “Only when trucking, warehousing and other industries are also developing in the direction of 24-hour operations, can the port really extend its operating hours. You can’t hire workers, open the port gates, and tell everyone that you can do business. , But no one came..."

★ The dilemma of the US supply chain is still difficult to easily solve ★

The position of the Port of Los Angeles undoubtedly highlights the complexity of the Biden administration in resolving the US supply chain crisis. Congestion in the supply chain is pushing up transportation costs and leading to a shortage of corporate inventories.

Southern California is the busiest container gateway in the United States. With the influx of retailers and manufacturers flooding the logistics network, the ports adjacent to the region have become a key bottleneck in the chaotic global supply chain. According to data from the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association, from January to July this year, the two ports handled the equivalent of more than 6 million inbound containers, a 23% increase from the pre-epidemic level.

On September 19, the number of container ships waiting for berths on the coast of Southern California reached a record 73, which left thousands of containers full of cargo lying idle on the sea. According to data from Israeli freight company Freightos, due to traffic congestion, the time required for a container to depart from China to its final destination in the United States has increased by 83%.

At the same time, container freight is still at a high level:

John Porcari, an official in the Biden administration responsible for resolving port congestion, said on Thursday that extending working hours at Southern California ports is an important step in persuading trucking companies, freight railroads and importers to extend working hours. "One of the general trends we are seeing is that the entire cargo transportation chain needs to operate close to 24 hours, rather than 8 or 10 hours a day," Porcari was appointed as the port envoy of the Biden administration at the end of August.

At present, in terms of land transportation, according to the data of transportation giant Hapag-Lloyd, the average residence time of containers at 11 major US rail terminals this month is 9.8 days, which is much higher than the 6.7 days in May and 5.9 days in February. The port of Los Angeles has the highest waiting time among them, and the delays of the Charleston and Detroit trains are also increasing. Hapag-Lloyd said that the delays at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are the most serious and are expected to continue for the rest of the year.

Many Asian ports are currently operating day and night without interruption, which is extremely efficient, but this 24-hour operation has not become popular in the United States. Many US ports will temporarily work overtime at night and on weekends during the surge in cargo to clean up container yards, or irregularly serve ships, but few stakeholders are willing to pay for permanent off-peak overtime.

Craig Grossgart, senior vice president of shipping, pointed out that “about 35% of the appointments were not fulfilled because truck drivers were unwilling to pull goods at night. This was partly due to the fact that the distribution center did not open at night.” Another way to relieve port congestion It is to first pull the container to another safe yard, stack the container on a chassis and then transport it away, but this is more expensive because it needs to be transported by truck twice, and additional expenses are required to lease the chassis.