Port congestion and the resulting decline in liners’
schedule performance has been a persistent story in 2021 as the global supply
chains worked to absorb the surge in trade after the first wave of the
pandemic. Southern California’s ports experienced a record number of vessels
waiting for terminal space early in the year and the disruptions at the Suez
Canal and later China's Yantian port were also causing backlogs.
Market analytics firm IHS Markit analyzed the time
containerships are spending waiting for berths reporting that it has more than
doubled since 2019. They attributed the increased port delays to surging
demand, equipment shortages, and other effects of the pandemic, saying that
they believe these issues are persisting as the global trade recovery is
becoming more sustained and broader.
According to IHS Markit’s Port Performance Data, North
America saw the biggest deterioration with vessels spending on average 33 hours
on anchor in May 2021 compared with average of just eight hours in May 2019.
While the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles were the most visible with their
delays, the data indicates that containerships were experiencing increased wait
times at many of the major seaports.
The data also illustrates that the congestion issues spread
across the global supply chain impacting many seaports. For Northern European
ports, IHS Markit says the average wait jumped to 30 hours in May 2021 compared
to 13 hours in 2019, while at East Asian ports the wait time increased to 15
hours from 10 hours two years earlier.
The congestion and bottlenecks not only slowed ships’
ability to reach the ports but also in many cases extended the time spent in
port. Containerships were frequently required to wait in anchorages or slow
steam to ports due to a lack of berths. IHS Markit says the average hours
containerships spent in port in May 2021 increases to 92 hours for North
America and while shorter still required 69 hours on average in Northern
European ports and 40 hours on average in East Asia.
“The pandemic and surge in global trade has resulted in a
collapse in global vessel schedule integrity,” said Turloch Mooney, Associate
Director, Maritime and Trade at IHS Markit. “A much larger percentage of ships
are arriving at their destinations well outside of schedule, making it very
challenging for ports to plan cargo operations and resulting in vessels having
to wait for long periods before they can be loaded or unloaded. Many ports are
struggling to maintain an efficient turnaround schedule putting further
pressure and delays on an already stretched global supply chain.”
Some ports have been especially hard hit with an increased
number of vessels and volume causing congestion and backlogs. IHS Markit
highlights that in Los Angles containerships spent an average 215 hours in port
in May 2021, of which 89 hours was at anchor. The COVID-19 outbreak in southern
China in May similarly resulted in a significant deterioration from 22 to 62
port hours between March to May 2021 at the port of Yantian.
The waiting time is calculated as the average amount of time
ships spend at anchor, while port hours includes waiting time, steam-in time,
and completion of cargo loading and unloading.
While the situation stabilized at many ports and some such
as Los Angeles were able to significantly reduce their backlogs, port officials
and carriers believe that this is the beginning of a long-term cycle that will
continue to see strong container volumes well into the future.