Posted on 07/29/2022 5:28:03 AM PDT by george76
153 ships stuck in queues off North American ports, up 66% from early June..
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North American port congestion has just re-entered record territory. The offshore traffic jam is once again as bad as it’s ever been.
In January and February, when North American congestion previously peaked, there were just under 150 container vessels waiting off the coastlines. Two-thirds were in the Los Angeles/Long Beach queue.
As of Thursday morning, there were 153, the majority off East and Gulf Coast ports. Whereas the earlier West Coast pileup was centralized, highly publicized and relatively easy to track, today’s ship queue is more widely disbursed and attracting less attention.
Ship queues bounce back..
Port congestion had finally looked like it was easing in May and early June. Ship queues had fallen back to double digits. There were 92 vessels waiting offshore as of June 10, led by 25 off Savannah, Georgia, 20 off Los Angeles/Long Beach, 18 off New York/New Jersey and 14 off Houston.
Then things turned for the worse. The tally rose to 125 on July 8, 136 on July 13 and 140 on July 19.
With the count now rising to 153, the North American container ship queue has increased in size by 66% over the past seven weeks.
As of Thursday morning, ship-position data from MarineTraffic and the latest queue lists for California ports showed 43 container ships waiting off Savannah; 26 off Los Angeles/Long Beach; 24 off Houston; 18 off New York/New Jersey; 17 off Vancouver, British Columbia; 15 off Oakland, California; and 10 ships off other ports.
Of those, 59 ships – 38% of the total – were waiting off the West Coast, where queues have climbed off Vancouver and Oakland. There were 94 ships (62% of the total) off the East and Gulf Coast ports, with counts up in both Savannah and Houston.
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Different terminals, different waiting time U.K.-based data provider VesselsValue found large differences in the waiting times at the top 10 East Coast terminals, including major differences between terminals in the same port complex.
It cited four East Coast terminals with long wait times: the New York and Elizabeth APM terminals in the Port of New York/New Jersey and the Garden City and Savannah terminals in the Port of Savannah.
In contrast, VesselsValue data found relatively short wait times at the Maher and Port Newark terminals in New York/New Jersey; the Norfolk International and Virginia International Gateway terminals in Norfolk, Virginia; the Packer Avenue terminal in Philadelphia; and the Wando Welch terminal in Charleston, South Carolina.
Shift caused by port labor fears?
It may be no coincidence that East and Gulf Coast congestion ramped up starting in June. That was the month new annual contracts kicked in. It was also the last month before the West Coast labor contract with the ILWU longshoreman union expired.
Akhil Nair, vice president of carrier management at Seko Logistics, said during a briefing on July 20, “With all the early threats of the potential ILWU strike and labor constraints on the West Coast, there was an automatic shift during contract season for customers to actually require traditional West Coast shippers to request allocation on the East Coast as well. This was their contractual hedge that they put in place.
“This has resulted now in people probably having overcompensated. The congestion on the East Coast is a result of some of this shifting in the supply chain design and hedging for potential incidents or reliable or unpredictable activity on the West Coast.”
Well, there’s NO other explanation! This is CLEARLY Trump’s fault! *SMIRK*
Let’s Go, Brandon!
We’re so screwed.
I couldn’t get through the article. Isn’t the backup because a trucker strike protesting the California law requiring new truckers to pick up freight?
“I couldn’t get through the article. Isn’t the backup because a trucker strike protesting the California law requiring new truckers to pick up freight?”
Yes.
I just assumed that when I saw the title. Oddly, it’s not even brought up in the article. At least not in the extract shown here.
As always, there is a GOVERNMENT screwup somewhere as the cause of this...
It is not straightforward to quantify port queues, and thus conducive to manipulation.
Want a smaller queue? Just lower the number of ships allowed within the distance that qualifies as a queue - some ships will have to anchor further away.
Same number of ships waiting to unload, only more or less dispersed.
Container shipping from Europe to our East coast has remained fairly favorable throughout the entire pandemic. The trains for moving containers across the country have been a nightmare though.
I wonder what would happen if we actually made things in THIS country?
Maybe we wouldn’t have all those ships off shore.
Most of it Chicom crap.
It’s all so Atlas Shrugged.
Where the hell is FudgeButt?
Isn’t it his job to correct problems like this?
Big Labor is showing off so their power will be felt and respected.
Pete, the queer, is trumped by Labor
Buttplugger is doing such a great job as Secretary of Transportation I can see why he thinks he should be President.
——requiring new truckers to pick up freight?-——
A little help please. What does that mean? what is a new trucker?
We are now beginning the hurricane season - lasting in the real world from August through October, and ranging across the entire Gulf Coast and Southern East Coast.
Now, forecast what will happen to these record backups nationally when each of the Houston and Texas section, the New Orleans to Mobile AL section, Pensacola to Miami and then Miami to Savanah sections are each closed for one week before a hurricane, and two weeks after each hurricane.
Long Beach, Portland and San Diego at least face no Pacific hurricanes. Seems like Ole Pete Transportation Department Buttigeg hasn’t planned for their affects on the south and east coasts. The good news is that there is near zero chance every port will be significantly damaged at the same time. But some damage is near certain someplace. Delays and losses certain.
At sea, the long slow transition of ships from China’s Panama Canal to these ports will be slowed as well as those in transit slow and avoid storm surge and winds.
Buttplug is way to busy selling EVs to worry about things like this
I keep looking for some of those teams of Rambo type warriors to come in and straighten this out and remove the bad guys causing this misery to humanity. Instead the only fight we have is rigged elections and wimp corrupt leaders.
Sometimes we need something to happen just like in the movies.
That's become the norm.
the CDC changed the definition of a vaccine
now we are changing the definition of a recession
port problem? Just change the definition.
all good!
That would be cool. Who would staff those factories?
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