In Issue 532 of the Sunday Spotlight, analysts
Sea-Intelligence used data published by United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development (UNCTAD) on port stays to shed light on the current bottleneck
issues faced by the container shipping industry.
Calculations showed that the median time spent in port in
first half of 2021 was higher by 11% compared to the pre-pandemic average time
spent in port in 2018 and 2019.
Comparing this to the global demand data published by
Container Trade Statistics (CTS) – which was up 5.5% over the same period –
shows that the efficiency of the port calls themselves declined in 2021.
Compared to the other vessel types, the median time spent in
port for container vessels recorded a far greater increase, Sea-Intelligence
found.
Global average berth duration for Hapag-Lloyd’s fleet have
increased a 11.4% from the first half of 2020 to 2021, CEO of the shipping line
Rolf Habben Jansen said on 8 September.
“The container
shipping sector is more impacted by the supply chain bottlenecks than other
parts of shipping – which in all likelihood can be traced to the container
shipping sector having a strong reliance on a land-side intermodal setup, which
also suffers from severe bottlenecks presently,” Sea-Intelligence wrote.
Increased e-commerce demand, in addition to tight inland
capacity, warehousing storage facilities, and labour availability have all been
highlighted by experts as prime drivers behind the soaring numbers of vessels
waiting to access ports.
In a bid to alleviate increasing vessel traffic, the ports
of Long Beach and Los Angeles announced on 17 September that they will expand
hours of container pick up availability for the chassis sector.
China recorded a 12% increase in the first half of 2021 vs
2018-2019, which is in line with the global average increase in the first half
2021.