November 10, 2021 Shipping, Drayage & Intermodal Advisory
USA Port Updates
While the average wait times for vessels to berth is improving marginally since our last report, you will still see the heaviest vessel congestion outside of Los Angeles / Long Beach, Seattle/Vancouver and Savannah on the West Coast. Intermittent weather and operational delays are affecting Houston and Norfolk as well this week. Southern California port terminals and a few in the Pacific Northwest will start assessing penalties on import containers that are not moved off terminals within a specified time frame. These charges will be levied against ocean carriers, but any penalties will be passed through to shippers. Read more detail in the US Port & Intermodal update report here.
Europe to North America
Demand out of North Europe remains high and is expected to continue through the end of the year. Vessel schedule reliability has been extremely low since August. Seasonal delays are also to be expected from winter storms and will impact temperature-sensitive cargo.
Shipments from Italy could see additional delays due to bad weather (limiting vessel stays at berth) as well as from regional strikes. There is a possibility of a port strike next week in Genoa which would further disruption operations there if a resolution is not reached this week.
As reported last month, due to Savannah port congestion Hapag-Lloyd will shift to Jacksonville, CMA-CGM to Charlston, and while MSC will continue to call Savannah, it has increased its peak season surcharge (PSS) by an additional USD1,000 on November 1st, 2021.
Port calls from Europe to Seattle will also shift as The Alliance ocean carrier network (Hapag-Lloyd, ONE, Yang Ming and Hyundai) will revise their AL5 service rotation to call at Vancouver, Oakland, and Los Angeles only. MSC has stopped accepting new bookings to Seattle due to the backlog of cargo at the trans-shipment port in Lazaro Cardenes (Mexico).
Oceania / New Zealand
Industrial action and work stoppages are continuing at Patricks terminals in Australia for November. Patricks terminals services nearly half of the container volume at Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Fremantle. Currently delays at Sydney are between 7-8 days, Brisbane up to 2 days, Fremantle between 5-7 days, and Melbourne up to 9 delays and with new stoppages these delays are expected to worsen throughout the month. This impacts services not only from Australian ports, but also equipment repositioning and sailings from New Zealand.
For more information on specific origins or bookings for upcoming shipments, including alternative shipping ports, air freight options for urgent orders, or reefer or VinLiner equipment for temperature-sensitive products, please reach out to your Hillebrand representative for more information or login to myHillebrand.