Affected by dual factors, the congestion situation in Ningbo Port and Shanghai Port has worsened!

On the morning of August 10, a person who tested positive for the nucleic acid of the coronavirus was found at the Ningbo Zhoushan Port Terminal, who was a strapping worker for the Ningbo Meidong Container Terminal. On the 11th, Meishan Wharf issued a statement announcing that due to the terminal system failure, all loading and lifting services will be suspended from now on, and the resumption time will be notified separately.

Ningbo Zhoushan Port Co., Ltd. notified the latest port production situation on August 12, stating that except for Meidong Company’s suspension of container pick-up services and ship operations, other port areas are in normal and orderly production. In the future, they will actively negotiate with the shipping company based on the ship's arrival plan in the last week to rationally adjust Meidong's ships to other port areas.

Zhoushan Port is the world's largest port in terms of cargo throughput and an important hub in East China, and Meishan Wharf's cargo throughput accounts for 20% of Zhoushan Port. Therefore, the current situation has had a huge impact on shipments in East China.

Data provided by the Danish consulting company eeSea shows that there are a huge number of container ships waiting for berths outside Ningbo-Zhoushan.

Shipping companies including CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd, and COSCO SHIPPING immediately announced that some of their routes would jump from Ningbo to Shanghai.

James Wroe, chief operating officer of Maersk Asia Pacific, said that the closure of the port "obviously will cause direct interference and the risk of further congestion in the surrounding ports when ships and cargo seek diversion." As Maersk ships docked at the docks in Ningbo Beilun Port area instead of Meishan docks, it has not been affected so far.

Affected by both the typhoon and the epidemic, the productivity of Shanghai Port and Ningbo Port has declined recently, and the port congestion is serious. A large number of ships are waiting for berths at the anchorages of Zhoushan Port and Shanghai Port. Shanghai Port has experienced the worst congestion in at least three years. Refinitive data shows that about 30 ships lined up outside Shanghai Yangshan Port to enter the port.

The Danish shipping research institute Sea-Intelligence recently conducted data-led statistics on congestion in 22 major container ports around the world. The results show that Shanghai Port and Ningbo Port have recently faced increasing congestion pressure. Among all 22 ports, the ports with more serious congestion than China's two major ports are: Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland, Rotterdam, Antwerp and Vietnam.

According to AIS data obtained by dry bulk operator Lauritzens Bulkers, in the past two weeks, due to the impact of port congestion and the restrictions brought by the prevention of the new crown epidemic, the number of dry bulk ships parked near Chinese ports has exploded. Recently, 7.5% of the world’s small dry bulk carriers, including Handysize and Supramax, have berthed near Chinese ports. This means an increase of 37% in just 10 days, which is equivalent to about 570 dry bulk carriers waiting to be unloaded at Chinese ports. The data two weeks ago was about 400 ships.

In addition, it is worth noting that Judah Levine, head of research at Freightos, a shipping tracking company, said that if China closes some ports, then freight rates will continue to rise, which means that the market needs to increase capacity by 25% to handle the same amount of cargo. The imbalance between supply and demand caused by continuous congestion and delays may cause freight rates to get out of control.

On the other hand, Josh Brazil, vice president of Project44, a US supply chain intelligence company, said, “If this situation continues until Black Friday and the holiday purchasing season, it will have far-reaching consequences for downstream businesses.”

Not long ago, Yantian Port was greatly affected by the "5.21 Epidemic". In order to prevent the spread of the epidemic, Shenzhen immediately adopted the most stringent, comprehensive and thorough epidemic prevention and control measures. Therefore, the operation speed of Yantian Port has slowed down. May 25 Begin to suspend the entry of heavy cabinets at the receiving exit. In the 14 days with the worst congestion, more than 357,000 TEUs were affected.

Yantian Port has only fully resumed its production capacity since June 24. From June 1st to June 15th, 298 ships with a total capacity of more than 3 million container ships in Yantian Port chose to skip Shenzhen instead of calling at the port. The number of ships that jumped from the port increased by 300% in one month; the average stay time of export containers at Yantian Wharf From the average 7 days to 14 days, June 15 reached 23.06 days.

The sudden drop in port throughput has brought about a chain reaction. Maersk believes that compared with the closure of the Suez Canal in March, the impact of the Yantian Port congestion is much more serious.

In the face of all the current maritime markets that are “seeing the sky”, Anton Posner, CEO of Mercury Resources, a supply chain management company, pointed out that many chartering companies have now included epidemic clauses in insurance to avoid paying for ship detention.

The latest data of the World Container Index released by maritime consulting company Drewry shows that per 40-foot container is 9371 US dollars, which is 6.7 times that of 2019.

Experts in the industry believe that the freight rates of European routes are close to the shipper's tolerance limit, and there is little room for further increase; North American routes are expected to continue to rise due to the continued high-end demand and the lack of containers and cabins. As the port plug problem may not be alleviated until the fourth quarter, the grand occasion is expected to continue until next year before the Chinese New Year.