Media: Heavy port congestion exacerbates container shortages, no short-term let-up

Industry insiders expect the current congestion at key Asian transhipment ports including Singapore, Port Klang, and Shanghai to persist in the near term, which would severely disrupt the global trade, according to media reports.

Apparently, the congestion at the world’s busiest container port Shanghai is at the highest level since the pandemic, where vessels have to wait five days to berth. About 50 ships have been waiting at the port since last week.

Meanwhile, 56 container ships are queuing at Singapore port and to ease the logjams, the authorities have reopened the shuttered Keppel Terminal. The decision helped to reduce the delayed vessel from 450,000 TEU last week to about 380,000 TEU this week.

In Port Klang, about 51 ships are in the queue.

The container shortages are expected to be more pronounced in the coming weeks or months as port congestion and longer route lock up the capacity while the demand is picking up. Market sources said that shippers are rushing out goods to the US ahead of the new tariffs, and port workers’ wage negotiations in the east coast in September.

Shipping lines are rushing to order more boxes to fill in the shortfall. Shipping container manufacturers in China are ramping up operating rates with ‘most of the factories having full or significant orders until late summer’, Bloomberg reported. The lead times for these new boxes to reach the market are generally a couple of months.