European Ports Are Extremely Congested! Shipping Company: Levy Congestion Surcharge

Recently, from German port workers, British railway workers, Belgian union laborers, Spanish truck drivers, to thousands of European airline employees, there have been protests or strikes. The following August, the UK's largest container port Felixstowe, Liverpool Peel and railway workers will continue to protest. Waves of strikes in the European sea, land and air transport industry have resulted in port congestion and shutdowns and supply chain disruptions. Shipping schedule and delivery time will be further delayed.

A few days ago, the South Korean shipping company Hanshin Shipping (HMM) issued an announcement saying that due to the increasing congestion of European terminals and the increase in the detention time of imported containers, the utilization rate of the yard continued to rise and the workload was high, which affected the operation, throughput and resources are adversely affected. As a result, more and more terminals are trying to address the issue of long-detention containers through a variety of measures, including moving containers to separate storage areas and/or implementing additional one-time and/or daily importing of long-detention containers TOLL.

While HMM has raised concerns and rejections of these surcharges with terminals, HMM also reminds customers to be prepared that if forced to accept any charges they have no choice but to encourage customers to pick up import containers as soon as possible during the free period to avoid these surcharges; otherwise, additional surcharges imposed by the terminal will only be passed on to the customer. Due to the urgent nature of many charges, short notice may be given.

Recently, frequent strikes in Europe and the United States have extended the original port congestion problem from the United States to Europe, including strikes in Hamburg, Germany, and Antwerp in Belgium. In August, there were strikes in Felixstowe, Peel, and railway workers across the country. . The big European ports can no longer stand the toss, and these strikes have largely paralyzed cargo handling at major ports such as Hamburg, Bremerhaven and Wilhelmshaven. Although the Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands has not gone on strike, due to the transfer of cargo volumes in the ports of Hamburg and Antwerp, the port is also relatively busy, and the waiting time for ships to enter the port is prolonged.

In June, the port of Rotterdam, the largest port in Europe, was in emergency. The port was faced with a backlog of empty containers, which made many people in the European shipping industry deeply anxious. According to the report, more than 2% of global shipping capacity was at a standstill in the North Sea in June, with no end in sight for container traffic congestion in early July, and port congestion in other regions is also increasing. Due to the unusually prolonged congestion, the cargo of these ships could not be loaded or unloaded.