Global container port congestion index hits record high
Congestion at container ports around the world is reaching new all-time highs, erasing the prospect of a return to normalized supply chains.
Recently, the container port congestion index of Clarksons, a well-known British maritime consulting company, hit a new record, with 37.8% of container ship capacity stranded at the port.
This exceeds the peak level recorded in late October 2021 and is well above the pre-pandemic average of 31.5% recorded between 2016 and 2019.
Congestion at container ports in many countries is serious
According to the latest weekly report from Danish maritime consultancy Sea-Intelligence, 70,000 truck drivers on strike in California and tens of thousands of containers blocked U.S. West Coast ports waiting for rail shipments due to a shortage of engineers.
Nearly 30,000 rail containers were delayed at the Port of Los Angeles terminals alone, and the average detention time for rail cargo was 7.5 days. Meanwhile, on the East Coast, congestion levels that have been brewing over the past two months are approaching record levels. Shipping companies have also issued warnings.
Hapag-Lloyd reports that ship waiting times at the Port of New York are “more than 20 days,” while as of last week there were 31 ships waiting for berths at the Port of Savannah. At New York terminals, yard utilization at Maher Terminal is 92%, while GCT Bayonne Terminal has a yard utilization rate of 75% and APMT is at 72%.
On the other hand, the situation in Canada is not optimistic. According to Hapag-Lloyd’s port operations report, all ships calling at the Port of Vancouver “continue to face significant delays” and there is still a backlog of ships waiting to be berthed at the Vancouver Port anchorage.
Yard utilization at GCT terminals is 85%, partly due to continued congestion on the inland rail ramps. Average rail container dwell times increased to 6.4 days and 6.8 days for Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) and Canadian National Railway (CN), respectively.
Meanwhile, Maersk has released an update on the current severe congestion at terminals and inland ramps in Canada.
The current yard utilization rate of the Centerm Terminal in the Port of Vancouver has reached 113%. The current yard utilization rate at the Port of Prince Rupert is also very high, reaching 117%, with the average container residence time being 9.2 days.
As detention times get longer, shipping companies are canceling port calls and starting to impose port congestion surcharges.
Maersk said: “Sailings have been canceled on our TP1 and TP9 services. Ongoing congestion has prevented the company from deploying additional ships to mitigate capacity losses.”
And in Europe, multiple dockworker strikes, rising coronavirus cases and a gathering of ships from Asia have created congestion at many ports, including Antwerp, Hamburg, Le Havre and Rotterdam.
At the Port of Antwerp, although port operations remain stable, the upcoming holiday season may result in reduced labor supply, with current yard utilization averaging 80%.
At Container Terminal Burchardkai (CTB) in Hamburg, Germany, ongoing labor disputes have resulted in shipping delays and container backlogs. Currently, the yard utilization rate is 83%, mainly due to longer port dwell times and longer pick-up times for imported goods.
At the Port of Southampton in London, 81% of the yard space is used, but the situation at the reefer terminal is manageable, with only 65% of the space used.
At the Port of Rotterdam, yard space is 85% full and refrigerated containers are 100% utilized. While pick-up rates have improved, transshipment and import cargo also have long dwell times.
In addition, Chittagong Port, the largest port in Bangladesh, is also currently experiencing severe congestion.
About 3,300 trucks laden with export goods are waiting to be unloaded at the gates of Chittagong’s 19 terminals, while about 9,300 export-ready containers are waiting to be loaded on designated ships. As many as 71 ships are docked at the Chittagong terminal and outer anchorage, while 42,000 TEUs are in the port yard, causing severe congestion.
Statistics analyzed by Copenhagen-based Sea-Intelligence show that as of the end of May, 9.8% of the global fleet was unavailable due to supply chain delays, down from a peak of 13.8% in January and down from 10.7% in April.
At the same time, the monsoon and typhoon season in Asia has arrived, which will also have a certain impact on ship delays.
Overall, the total trade volume of goods stuck at sea is estimated at around $30 billion, according to MDS Transmodal.
The Kuehne+Nagel platform has released the Global Disruption Indicator, which calculates cumulative TEU wait times in days based on container ship capacity at 12 hotspot ports around the world.
TEU waiting days (twd) is a measurement standard. For example, a ship with a capacity of 10,000 TEU waiting for 12 days is equal to 120,000 twd.
Currently, the indicator stands at 9.8 million twd, and Kuehne+Nagel officials explained that the supply chain will return to normal only when the number falls below 1 million twd.
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