SHIPPERS in Asia and Brazil are suffering from cargo delays of up to a month as ocean carriers omit calls at key transshipment ports in Central and South America to offset delays caused by limits on the number of ship transits through the drought-hit Panama Canal.
Port and freight forwarding executives say the omissions mainly affect carriers in THE Alliance, reports New York's Journal of Commerce.
Highlighting the delays, Fabrizio De Paulis, managing director of Brazilian forwarder De Paulis Logistics & SCM Eireli, said two consignments of reefer containers were delayed at Cartagena, Colombia, for almost two weeks because of port omissions and congestion.
Ocean Network Express (ONE) and Hapag-Lloyd confirmed they are skipping calls, especially at Cartagena and Manzanillo in Panama, although omissions are being made at other ports.
ONE said at least December 12 and January sailings on the Asia-US East Coast EC1 and EC2 services, operated as part of THE Alliance network, would skip calls at either Manzanillo or Cartagena as vessels were diverted.
Vessels operating those services, including the 13,000-TEU Ulsan Express and 13,296-TEU Al Riffa were originally to be diverted through the Suez Canal, ONE said. But due to the threat of missile and drone attacks in the Red Sea, ships are now sailing via the Cape of Good Hope.
The extra transit time has lengthened the original delay of about 10 days for arrival on the US East Coast to about one month, vessel schedules showed.
By comparison, the latest data from the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) shows 47 vessels with transit bookings and 23 vessels without were waiting in the queue last Tuesday. The average waiting time for non-booked neo-Panamax vessels was under five days for north and southbound vessels, ACP data showed.
ONE said it was also transshipping cargo in South Korea's Busan after it changed vessel routings from eastbound to westbound to avoid the Panama Canal.
Hapag-Lloyd said it is omitting calls at ports including Kaohsiung, Taiwan and Buenaventura in Colombia on its Asia-Latin America (JCS) and North Europe-South America Westcoast (SWX) services.
Maersk said it has not made any port omissions despite the restrictions through the Panama Canal.
Panama is continuing to suffer from a prolonged drought in what is supposed to be the height of the country's rainy season, which generally lasts between May and November.
The number of ship transits through the canal, reduced to 32 during the northern hemisphere summer, but further reduced to 31 from November 1. Under normal circumstances, about forty transits per day would take place.
Panama's Manzanillo International Terminal (MIT) said it has been negatively impacted by THE Alliance's decision to redeploy its trans-Pacific services westbound via the Suez Canal and Cape of Good Hope.
"We expect vessel calls to be 5 per cent below 2022's figure as a result," MIT spokesperson Juan Carlos Croston told the Journal of Commerce.
"The Panama and South America markets still need to be served," he added. "Other carriers will need to pick up the slack. The question is which carriers will benefit."
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