Shipping Companies Warn: Global Port Congestion Is Serious

Liner giant Maersk said in a client advisory on its Asia-Mediterranean route: "Unprecedented conditions of severe port congestion around the world continue to cause delays on several routes on the Asia-Mediterranean route. This situation is driven by increased demand and supply across ports and across the board. These cumulative delays are now causing further gaps in flight schedules and causing multiple Asian flights to be separated by more than seven days."

Congestion at ports in Europe and North America continues to be high, leaving 12.4 percent of global vessel capacity unavailable, according to South Korean liner HMM. From this perspective, the normal, pre-pandemic state of affairs in the market is that 2 percent of global capacity is stuck in delays somewhere.

Lars Jensen, CEO of liner consultancy Vespucci Maritime, noted via LinkedIn this morning that the number of ships near Long Beach and Los Angeles has now fallen to 61 from a high of more than 100, pointing to rising queues on the U.S. East Coast and Gulf. Outside of Charleston, for example, a new high of 31 ships was reached on Wednesday, resulting in no admissions for loading exits on Thursday and Friday mornings.

"So it appears that part of the reason for California's improvement isn't that the supply chain issues are being resolved -- the issues are just moving elsewhere," observes Lars Jensen.

Spot freight for a 40-foot container from Shanghai to Los Angeles rose to 11,030 yesterday, up 3.3 percent from a week ago and 125 percent from a year ago, according to the Drewry World Container Index.