Maersk: "Continuous congestion has become a global problem"



        Maersk said that with terminal congestion, delays of one or two days are becoming the norm in many ports.


  As the company analyzed the market chaos, the company announced its strategy to deal with the continued delays of the world's third busiest Yantian terminal. Maersk and its partners will have 84 ships not docking at Yantian, involving multiple services, affecting Maersk’s 19 services in mainland China, but some ships will continue to dock at Yantian.


        Maersk said in a press release: "This trend is worrying, and continued congestion is becoming a global problem." "Due to the COVID-19 disease and the substantial increase in freight volumes since the end of last year, the terminal is becoming a global bottleneck. Whether it’s in berths, freight yards or shutting out goods, this situation continues to exist in the entire logistics chain-in warehouses and distribution centers, the number is rising."


   Maersk said that Yantian is currently the most prominent bottleneck, but in many other ports, waiting for one or two days is becoming the norm.


The company said: "After the Suez incident in March this year, the port congestion in Yantian and the neighboring Shekou and Nansha ports were also affected. At a time when the global supply chain is already under tension, in order to restore the reliability of operations and services to normal And hard work is worse."


   The changes in consumption patterns during the national blockade caused by the pandemic have strained the supply chain because the flow of assets such as containers has changed. In March of this year, Ever Given blocked the Suez Canal, causing the delay of hundreds of Asian-European trading vessels, causing a backlog of calls in some ports, which took more than a month to clear and further disrupted the normal flow of assets.


   Like the blockage of the Suez Canal, the impact of the economic slowdown in Yantian will affect the global supply chain. Maersk said: "What we want to remind is that as we adjust the network to avoid port congestion and limit the overall net loss of ocean network capacity due to the omission of Yantian Port, shipping that is not directly affected by Yantian Port may also be affected." AP Moller-Maersk Ocean and Logistics CEO Vincent Clerc told reporters earlier this week that the lack of available ships in the market means that shipping companies cannot bring more capacity to fill the gap caused by delays. Therefore, delays will result in loss of voyages, which will aggravate the initial port delays and affect the ability of the routes to provide weekly services.


   The 6-day export container stay in Yantian ended on June 15. After the new crown pneumonia epidemic led to a reduction in personnel and interruption of disinfection work, the port's capacity fell sharply. With the return of workers, the port’s productivity is gradually increasing, but the current delay is as long as 16 days. As more than 300 ships did not call at Yantian, the delays in nearby Shekou, Nansha and Hong Kong ports are expected to increase by two to four days.


   Maersk stated that it is expected that the supply of 40-foot and 40-foot cube containers will be negatively affected due to the situation in Yantian, and encourages customers to use 20-foot containers in Yantian and Shekou as alternatives.