Congestion worsens! 116 ports around the world are congested and 328 ships are affected! Congestion and rising freight will continue until the first half of next year

Port congestion has spread all over the world, and more and more container ships of the five continents are waiting for berths. A map released by seapexplorer, a container transportation platform created by logistics giant Kuehne + Nagel, highlights the current ultra-high pressure on container ports around the world.

As of 3:20 pm Singapore time on 21, July, 328 ships were stranded in ports around the world, and 116 ports reported congestion and other problems.

According to the data of seapexplorer platform a month ago, 304 ships were congested in 101 ports, which further aggravated the congestion. As much as 10% of the world's shipping capacity has been consumed due to port congestion.

Over the past month,as backlogs in Chinese Yantian Port have been cleared, one significant change is the doubling of ships waiting outside Singapore, the large Asian transit port, and the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the two largest US maritime gateways.

According to the latest statistics, there are 18 ships queuing off the coast of Los Angeles, and the average waiting time for berths is nearly 5 days. Containers stayed at the Los Angeles-Long Beach terminal for an average of 4.76 days in June, up from 3.96 days in May, according to the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association.

Mario Cordero, Long Beach executive director, said the port will enter a peak import season later this month as retailers replenish for back-to-school shopping and year-end holidays. It indicates that it will not be possible to move towards a certain normal state until the end of the year.

Griff Lynch, executive director of Georgia Port Authority, said that strong demand for imported goods may last until 2022, because enterprises are scrambling to restock during the uneven rebound of the epidemic, which continued until the Chinese Lunar New Year. And there are now many signs that it may last after the Spring Festival.

Container ports from Seattle to Charleston, South Carolina have seen record volumes of cargo this year, and many ports are so overwhelmed with cargo that ships have to pay for waiting for berths to dock. Capacity constraints have pushed shipping rates up to four times what they were before the pandemic.

At the same time, due to the influx of goods from China, Vietnam and other ports in Asia, the terminals have been overwhelmed. The storage space ran out, and transportation such as trucks and railways was tight, thus the congestion on the west coast has become more serious. Union Pacific temporarily halted rail shipments of containers from Western ports such as Los Angeles and Long Beach this week to deliver containers near Chicago.

At the end of May, Yantian Port suffered the pandemic, which caused some docks to stop working for 4 weeks. In recent weeks, ports in many other countries and regions are also facing tremendous pressure due to the rampant epidemic. For example, since last Sunday, the ports in southern Vietnam have been blocked due to the epidemic, and more and more ships were waiting to dock.

"If the recent disruption to Yantian Port is taken into account, port congestion and rising freight may be the main topic in the first half of 2022. Although there is little chance of a blockage in the Suez Canal, there is always a risk of further pandemic outbreaks at major hub ports, especially given the viral variant pandemic. " Adviser Drury warned in a recent report.

According to Clarkson's data released last Friday, since the beginning of 2020, the total capacity of container ships has increased from an average of 29.2% from 2016 to 2019 to 31.8%, reaching 33% as of April this year. This would absorb an additional 2.5% of fleet capacity, or 600,000 teu, equivalent to the capacity of 25 large ships. The carrying capacity is equivalent to the entire fleet of Yangming, the world's ninth-largest liner company.

Lars Jensen, founder of container consultancy Vespucci Maritime, estimated earlier this month that as much as 10% of global shipping capacity had been consumed due to port congestion .

Port performance data from IHS Markit shows that container ships have more than doubled their waiting time for berthing as of May this year compared with 2019. The situation deteriorated most seriously in North America. In May 2021, the average anchoring time of ships was 33 hours, while it was only 8 hours in May 2019. Figures for June and July are not yet available, but the figures are likely to worsen after the near shutdown of Yantian Port and many rail disruption in North America and Europe.

Turloch Mooney, deputy head of maritime affairs and trade at IHS Markit, said: "It is worrying that the situation has not improved." "The reliability of the shipment is still far below the level before the epidemic. Considering the rapid growth of freight volume, the full capacity operation of many terminals and the continuous problem of equipment repositioning, it is difficult to see a substantial improvement in the short term. "