Port congestion eased slightly last week with improvements coming mainly from Chinese ports while there was little change in the situation in Europe and North America. In China, the congestion is mainly concentrated in Shanghai and Ningbo which continues to see elevated vessel calls and container volumes with waiting times of up to 2 days. European port congestion also remains high with Hamburg, Rotterdam, Antwerp and London Gateway experiencing very high yard occupancy rates that has caused ber
Port congestion rebounded sharply over the past week with both Chinese and North European ports experiencing severe delays. The Yangtze River delta ports of Shanghai and Ningbo are experiencing a significant surge in the number of ships waiting at anchorages, with the situation in Shanghai being particularly bad due to high vessel traffic and weather related delays. North European main port congestion has also worsened with very high yard occupancy reported in Rotterdam, Antwerp, Hamburg and So
Port congestion rebounded last week after a brief improvement at Chinese ports as the number of ships waiting at anchorages have picked up sharply especially in Shanghai and Ningbo where vessel waiting times have risen to up to 4 days. High cargo traffic and vessel bunching on arrival has caused congestion to build up, with activity boosted by cargo front loading ahead of December rate hikes and potential US East Coast labour strife. The expectation for more cargo to be shipped ahead of the impl
Port congestion is clearing across the board as the global fleet currently tied up at anchorages has dropped below 2.1m TEU from the October peak of 3.0m teu. Ports in North Asia have seen the biggest improvements as they continue to clear out the waiting queue of ships after the recent spate of typhoons that hit the region in the last 2 months. Although delays of up 2 days are reported at several main hubs including Shanghai, Ningbo, Qingdao and Busan, the situation continues to improve with no
From Weekly Market Pulse published on 22 Oct: Global port congestion rebounded after the sharp retreat a week ago, with rising volumes after the Golden Week holidays in China pushing up the workload at Chinese terminals. Most of the backlog has been cleared at Chinese main ports with delays at Qingdao, Ningbo and Shenzhen down to within 1 day but Shanghai still faces berthing delays of up to 2 days although that is also down from a peak of up to 5-6 days in September. US East Coast ports still
Global container port congestion has eased noticeably in the past week, with Chinese ports gradually clearing the backlog of vessels that has built up around its main ports at the end of September. Shanghai remains highly congested with berthing delays of up to 4 days but the other key ports including Ningbo, Shenzhen and Qingdao have managed to bring down the average vessel waiting times to less than 1 day. In the US East Coast, Hurricane Milton made landfall on 10 October but most of the main
The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) announced on 3 October a tentative agreement on wages and extended the Master Contract until 15 January 2025 to negotiate all other outstanding issues, ending the dockworkers’ strike that started at midnight on 1 October. Vessel congestion at US East Coast ports spiked to a high of 460,000 teu on 4 October but is clearing up quickly after all of the affected ports resumed vessel operations by the en
US East Coast ports were shut down from 1 October 2024 with ramifications that could be far more serious than all previous port strikes in the US, including the 1971 ILWU strike that lasted 130 days, the 1977 ILA selective strike that lasted for 57 days, the 2002 PMA lockout of the ILWU that lasted for 11 days and the 2014-2015 ILWU work slowdowns that persisted for almost 5 months. Congestion at US East Coast ports has picked up last week ahead of the planned strike, with Savannah, Charleston
Aggregated container volumes handled at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach reached 1.87m teu in August, the second highest monthly throughput ever recorded at the main Pacific Southwest (PSW) gateway port just shy of the 1.92m teu peak handled during the peak of the COVID pandemic in May 2021. The current volumes already exceed the 1.67m teu handled in January 2022 when congestion at the San Pedro Bay ports reached a record high of 740,000 teu, but there is still few signs of any serious co
A coastwise strike at US East and Gulf Coast ports now looks certain to start on 1 October 2024. The 14 ports controlled by the ILA handled 28.4m teu of containerised cargo in 2023 or almost 550,000 teu each week. For each week that the strike continues, it would hold up 1.7% of the global containership fleet, with an indefinite strike expected to affect over 4.5m teu of the fleet, accounting for 15% of the total containership capacity. Global port congestion has eased over the past week but th