Affected By The Fog And The Epidemic, At Least 477 Bulk Carriers Are Queuing At Chinese Ports!

Recently, according to statistics compiled by Bloomberg (April 11), 477 dry bulk ships were waiting to unload ore and grains in waters near China.

The city, home to the world's largest container port, has suffered due to shortages of truck drivers and warehouse closures after Shanghai launched a city-wide lockdown late last month to fight Covid-19, with at least 477 container ships currently congested in eastern China's ports.

It is reported that there are queues for ships carrying raw materials. More than two weeks later, the congestion has expanded to the nearby Ningbo-Zhoushan port, as shipowners desperately divert vessels to other Chinese ports to avoid a shortage of truckers and warehouse closures in Shanghai.

There were 222 bulk carriers waiting near Shanghai as of April 11, up 15% from a month earlier, according to Bloomberg Shipping data. In Ningbo-Zhoushan, there were 134 vessels, an increase of 0.8% from the previous month, while further north, congestion at the ports of Rizhao and Qingdao Dongjiakou also increased by 33% to 121 vessels.

To make matters worse, 197 container ships were loading or waiting to be loaded at the Shanghai and Ningbo anchorages, a 17% increase from a month ago.

According to shipowners and traders, a shortage of workers at the Shanghai port and the inefficiency in the delivery of various documents is slowing down the unloading of cargo from ships. Meanwhile, ships carrying metal ores such as copper and iron ore are stuck at sea because trucks are unable to carry the cargo from the port to the processing plant.

Some of the vessel congestion is spreading to other ports, with ships being diverted further north to ports in Qingdao and Tianjin, where trucking services have not been affected as much, the people said. In Tianjin, 54 ships were waiting on April 11, an increase of 29% in a month.

Low congestion at ports in Hebei and Liaoning provinces, and mandatory mass nucleic acid testing of truck drivers and workers in March and April also hampered trucking. Ship queues at Liaoning's Dalian port decreased by 36% compared with the previous month, and the queues in Hebei Tangshan decreased by 35% compared with the previous month.