Posted on 10/23/2021 10:32:33 PM PDT by SoConPubbie
This is a follow-up to the original explanation of the epicenter of the supply chain backlog issue, ie “The Clog“. {GO DEEP} You need to review the years-long and building background issue to understand the fubar that Joe Biden has just made worse.
From the White House perspective, the problem at the California ports, specifically the Port of Los Angeles (POLA) and the Port of Long Beach (POLB), was visible due to hundreds of container ships sitting in a queue off the coast of Los Angeles awaiting their opportunity to offload their cargo. The media was reporting on the backlog of ships and Joe Biden was under fire.
The team behind Joe Biden wanted the optics removed asap. Hence, the White House meeting with the heads of the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, Gene Seroka and Mario Cordero, respectively.
The continuing supply chain crisis of empty store shelves, missing parts and component goods that are backlogged at the California ports may be politically represented by the optic of those floating vessels. However, that’s not the problem.
The problem is a shortage of CA emission compliant internal transportation trucks to move the containers out of the port and into the U.S. mainland.
As a result… the politically expedient goal to get rid of the optical problem (the ships) by offloading containers into a California port system, that is already overwhelmed with tens-of-thousands of containers, is only making the original issue exponentially worse.
With hundreds more containers being offloaded hourly, the port infrastructure needed to load trucks long-sitting in the queue to pick up containers that arrived weeks ago is collapsing.
Truckers are waiting for over 8 hours to pick up their freight because the yards are swamped with containers. As each hour passes, more containers are offloaded into the port that can no longer deal with the scale of the problem. Each individual container is now buried in an avalanche of more containers, and that is making the limited compliant trucking resources even more problematic….. “containergeddon“.
Long before the ships started lining up offshore, many massive multinational corporations could foresee what was happening. They diverted their contracted freight into alternative ports (outside California) and began setting up new transportation arrangements. Two things happened:
(1) The alternative ports started getting backed up due to the redirected cargo arriving; and
(2) The shifted Trucking and Railroad system priority now meant resources were pulled from California.
With trucking companies redirecting resources away from California, this exacerbates the California backlog. Suppliers and retailers then enter a bidding war for priority distribution to get their stuff and avoid the clogs. This is a perfect storm of disruption in the supply chain aptly called “containergeddon.” However, not all ports can offload ships with thousands of containers. Not all ports have massive gantry cranes that can efficiently offload the cargo.
Back in California (where POLA and POLB do have the gantry cranes), now you have Los Angeles port workers saying we are offloading ships at maximum productivity, and truck drivers saying they’ve been sitting around for hours, some even days, waiting to pick up their containers. Meanwhile, other ports outside California are under pressure from the rerouted backlog of container vessels, and a limited amount of resources, trucks and railroad shipments to clear their arrivals.
Port workers are saying it’s not their lack of offloading that creates the problem, and the truckers are saying it ain’t us… “we’re sitting here waiting”.
♦ Few people are paying attention to what actually created the crisis in the first place.
The backlog all comes from California West Coast ports. It’s the issues with the new California emission regulations {Go Deep} that created the regional bottleneck in the distribution pipeline. The growing issue started becoming visible several months/years ago when the California Air Resource Board (CARB) announced the new environmental regulations.
As a direct result, several massive multinational corporations, with specifically concerned supply chain and logical operations specialists, immediately recognized the issue they would face if 50+ percent of the diesel fleet (writ large) would be blocked from entering California ports. That’s why months ago massive corporations began exclusive shipping contracts to avoid the California created crisis:
REUTERS – […] “The dry bulk cargo ship has been drafted into the service of retail giant Walmart, which is chartering its own vessels in an effort to beat the global supply chain disruptions that threaten to torpedo the retail industry’s make-or-break holiday season.
[…] Other big retail players, such as Target, Home Depot , Costco and Dollar Tree, have said they are chartering ships to deal with the … slowdown of sea networks that handle 90% of the world’s trade.” (link)
It costs more money, a lot more money, to move an entire supply chain for billions of tons of goods coming. The increases in shipping costs are passed along to the consumer.
Hence, we see prices climbing as a result of increased transportation costs being factored in to the new logistics. Did you hear about massive increases in container shipment prices? Well, THAT’S WHY.
The entire supply chain from Asia to the United States was being modified from the closest port (California), which was cost effective, to the ports where internal transportation would not be an issue.
Ships from China and SE Asia were being diverted away from California, some through the Gulf of Mexico into Texas, Louisiana, Alabama ports or inland waterways. Some even headed to the East Coast. However, any shipment diverting from the West Coast has to go through the Panama Canal into the Gulf of Mexico. It takes twice as long and costs twice as much, if not more. Hence, massive shipping price increases per container.
Back in Washington DC, Joe Biden’s solution was to get rid of the ships floating off the coast of California by piling their cargo into Los Angeles ports that are already overwhelmed with cargo they are trying to organize. The emission compliant truck drivers are now charging the ports for their time sitting around waiting for the dock workers to locate their freight.
The more containers they pile into the port, the longer it takes a limited number of trucks to move them.
The California ports are running out of places to store containers full of goods that are getting off-loaded. Hundreds of thousands of them are piling up. The central issue is the inability of emission compliant heavy transportation in California to move those containers full of goods to manufacturing, warehouses and distribution points.
This California bottleneck has been building, and building and building for years, until now it has reached a crisis point.
FUBAR.
I wonder what Jimmy Carter would do
Ŕead that as mandgate... new scandal word?
When you go to war with a people you place an embargo on them. And that’s exactly what this is. Figured this out yet?
I’ve never worked around shipping containers. I’m familiar with yard management of 52 foot trailers.
We have identifiable locations in our yards. When we need to drop a trailer, our Yard Management software directs the switcher to drop the trailer at a specific spot. When it’s time to retrieve that trailer, it directs him to get trailer XZ from location 123.
It sounds like they are now placing these shipping containers on unmarked spots in areas not designed for storage. So they don’t have a way to easily locate a designated container. It’s possible they might have RFID tags to help.
Are these things larger than a trailer? They look like they are. Do they have yard equipment to stack them, and how high can the equipment stack them?
I’m assuming they cannot unload a container that is stacked atop other containers. So when they do find it, they will have to redo the stack and haul the container to a loading dock so they can transfer the merchandise to a trailer.
What are the ships going to do? I wouldn’t think they would go back overseas empty. But there aren’t empty containers to give them. And it seems they would be running out of shipping containers at the origin points overseas.
How are they feeding the crew that’s stuck out there waiting to unload?
I’m looking for feedback from anyone familiar with working with these things.
Here is a guy with a suitable background analyzing and endorsing those 5 recommendations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERqikbfoLnw
Shipping containers are just the box portion of a semi trailer. They get locked on to a trailer frame and hauled like any regular van trailer. They don’t get unloaded at the port.
The problem is Cali’s regulatory stupidity. There aren’t enough “clean” yard tugs to shuffle the containers from the yards to the waiting OTR tractors. If the Cali government issued an emergency waiver that allowed any truck that could move to work the port, they could make headway on the backlog.
The tug tractor shortage is why Biden’s 24/7 port order is so stupid. Piling more containers into the wharf is only exacerbating the tug shortage.
It is Global Warming fault!
As a matter of fact, this really is caused by the Global warming alarmists. Get ready for more.
Florida is certainly trying. The Port of Jacksonville is doing the most business and handling it very well, and as for the trains…yesterday I saw a train running along Hwy 1 that was so long I lost count but I did manage to see that it had six engines at the front.
Obviously Florida can’t handle all of the backlog, but even taking part of it would help and it’s sure doing nice things for our local economy!
Globalism and the failed policy of off shoring industry are on display every day! May it get worse and worse.
WE DESERVE THIS.
With 5 shipping containers you get egg roll.
Can the wholesale hanging of Free Traitors start yet?
Canada's CPPIB to buy Ports America from Oaktree to further infrastructure push
Watchdog raises concern about Canadian pension investments in China
Guess who's running our major ports now?
https://www.jaxport.com/corporate/about-jaxport/
That may explain a lot.
Doesn’t look like the ChiCons are running it.
The problems with the California ports were decades in the making and there is zero that the federal government can do to fix it in the short term, and not a lot they can do in the long run.
Agreed. Globalism was always a chase after fools gold for the average worker but was also always about making the rich richer.
As anti nationalist and anti free trader this display of glo-BULL-ism in action is a beautiful thing to behold.
On the other hand, as Goethe once said, "Why blame conspiracy when stupidity can explain so much?"
I wonder how Seattle would compare to LA.
So when they do find it, they will have to redo the stack and haul the container
to a loading dock so they can transfer the merchandise to a trailer.
Here's a guy(?) who don't...
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