Truckers strike in South Korea is expected to cause shipment delays

Thousands of truckers in South Korea have gone on strike for three straight days on Thursday, 9 June demanding for higher pay and more actions from the government to control the fuel prices. 

Although the transport ministry claimed that the strike has not caused significant disruption in logistics, the impact is being felt at the port.

According to media reports, the container occupancy rate at Busan Port rose to 76.3% from 73.9% the previous day. Overseas customers in the petrochemical sectors have been notified about the situation and potential delay in shipment of previously purchased cargoes. 

A South Korean trader based in Vietnam said, “At the moment, we estimated a delay of about one week for June loading cargoes. We have to monitor further how long will this demonstration last.” 

Another international trading house informed CommoPlast of delays in the delivery of cargoes to Latin American customers, however, the duration of the delay is not confirmed at the time of this report. 

South Korea is a net exporter of petrochemical products. In late May, South Korean PP and PE suppliers became hyper competitive across the global market, slashing prices to quickly deplete June allocations, a move market players speculated that aimed to quicken the bottoming process and to achieve the mid-year sales targets.