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CONTAINER shipping industry analyst conglomerate Linerlytica says increased port congestion has exacerbated the troubles of the overstretched container market.
Worsening port congestion has removed more than 2 per cent of container vessel supply since March, according to a new report from Bank of America, citing Singapore, Dubai and the Mediterranean as congestion hot spots, while Asian box availability remains tight, according to media reports.
"Port congestion has returned to haunt the container markets, with Singapore becoming the latest chokepoint," warned Linerlytica, which notes berthing delays are now up to seven days at the world's second largest container port with the total capacity waiting to berth rising to 450,000 TEU in recent days.
The analyst noted that the global port congestion indicator hit the 2 million TEU mark, accounting for 6.8 per cent of the global fleet with Singapore becoming the new congestion hotspot.
Berthing delays at the world's second-largest container port have reached up to seven days. The extreme congestion has led some carriers to cancel their planned Singapore port calls, exacerbating the difficulty in downstream ports that would have to manage increased loads.
The delays have also resulted in vessel bunching, which has caused spillover congestion and scheduling difficulties in downstream ports.
The increase in port congestion has pulled over 400,000 TEU of vessel capacity out of circulation in only the previous week, with the situation anticipated to worsen further in the following month.
Shanghai and Qingdao are also experiencing a huge build-up of box ships at anchor. Dwell times at Shanghai, the world's largest box port, are now at three-year highs.
"Such inefficiencies of cargo movement have led carriers to omit regional calls and blank sailings in their longer haul routes so as to restore schedule reliability, which has further reduced the already tight capacity," HSBC stated in a note to clients, discussing today's sky-high spot freight rates, the highest on record outside the Covid era.
"The port congestion in Asia and the sudden surge in demand now soaks up even more capacity - capacity which the market does not have," analysts at Sea-Intelligence suggested in their latest weekly report, adding: "Carriers are blanking sailings, not in attempt to restrict capacity, but simply because they do not have free vessels to maintain weekly services, when vessels get stuck in congestion."
https://shippingazette.com/
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