Recently, the global epidemic has struck back, causing a new round of blow to the already precarious supply chain.
Tianjin: Epidemic control affects trailers
A few days ago, the Tianjin Municipal Government issued a notice: It will be a holiday on the afternoon of the 12th, and the city will launch the second round of nucleic acid testing for all employees.
Card collection situation:
Currently, drivers can enter Tianjin with a 48-hour nucleic acid certificate, a green itinerary code, and a green health code. However, if they need to leave Tianjin after delivering goods at the storage yard, they need to issue a delivery certificate in addition to the nucleic acid and green codes (the storage yard issued), certificate of departure from Tianjin (presented to the street where the storage yard is located with proof of delivery).
Due to different policies in each region, some foreign drivers will not dare to load goods because they are worried that they will not be able to leave Tianjin after entering Tianjin. In addition, some local drivers are in closed and controlled areas, which will affect the availability of trailers to a certain extent.
Alternative solution:
•Some shipping companies support packing through other nearby ports (Huanghua, etc.), and then arriving at Tianjin Port through branch lines for customs declaration and shipment;
•Consider shipping via Qingdao Port.
Westport: 800 dockworkers quarantined, 102 ships waiting for berths
As the mutant strain of Omicron spreads across the United States, the congestion situation at the two major ports in the West and the United States has seriously worsened!
As of Monday, Western Time, about 800 dockworkers, about one-tenth of the daily workforce at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, were unable to go to work due to the outbreak, according to the Pacific Maritime Association.
The association said the number of daily worker infections had risen rapidly in recent weeks, rising from a few to dozens a day and then reaching about 150 a day last week.
The shortfall meant that two container ships at the port complex received fewer dockworkers than required on Monday, with 13 ships not receiving the workers required to load and unload cargo, effectively halting operations. On the same day, 102 container ships were waiting for berths at the port.
Before the pandemic, it was unusual for multiple ships to wait for berths.
Alan McCorkle, CEO of the Port of Los Angeles’ Yusen Terminal, said the increase in new coronavirus infections has extended the labor shortage that began during the Christmas and New Year holidays, causing the terminal’s efficiency to drop by about 20%, which will only prolong the time it takes for the port to return to normalcy.
Los Angeles County, where many port workers live, had a record 200,000 positive cases in the week ending Jan. 8, said Frank Ponce De Leon, an official with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents West Coast port workers.
Noel Hacegaba, executive vice director of the Port of Long Beach, said in a statement that despite the increase in worker infections, the port’s terminals remain operational and continue to work extended hours. The Port of Los Angeles referred concerns about labor shortages to the Pacific Maritime Association.
Jim McKenna, the association’s chief executive, said container terminals might be able to make up for some of the backlog if Asian factories reduce operations during the Lunar New Year period, which starts in a few weeks.
But he warned that the association, whose majority members include the world’s largest shipping companies, expected the surge in cargo volumes to continue into the next six months or even the end of 2022.
Congestion and bottleneck issues are getting worse in 2022
Sea-Intelligence analyzed data from the November 2021 issue of the Global Liner Performance Report to calculate how much ship capacity has been reduced due to seemingly endless congestion around the world.
The normal situation in the market is that 2% of global shipping capacity will be trapped due to delays. Demand is up 7% year-on-year in 2021, partly due to the decline in early 2020, but at the same time effective capacity has been reduced by 11%.
In addition, Sea-Intelligence calculates the terminal congestion index using customer reports released every two weeks by South Korea’s major container shipping company HMM.
The chart above shows the results of Sea-Intelligence’s Terminal Congestion Index for North America and Europe.
For North America, the modest improvement after Golden Week was completely reversed at the end of 2021, with a new record set on December 30, although there was another slight improvement on January 6, driven by improvements in Savannah and Charleston.
As far as Europe is concerned, Danish analysts believe that the situation has been steadily deteriorating since the beginning of October, with no signs of improvement or even stabilization.
“This also means we are likely to see freight rates continue to rise on this trade lane, as congestion is likely to have a negative impact on schedule reliability, which in turn affects available capacity,” analyst Alan Murphy commented.
He concluded that all available data showed that congestion and bottlenecks were getting worse by 2022, with no signs of improvement.
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