A disruption indicator recently launched by a global forwarder reflects a severely disrupted world shipping container network in the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, Seattle, Vancouver, Savannah, New York, Oakland, Prince Rupert, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Ningbo, Rotterdam and Antwerp. Current indicators reflect a waiting time and scale of 11.6 million TEU days. Normalcy would only return when the indicator drops to less than 1 million TEU days.
Around 80% of the disruption is associated with North American ports according to the global congestion map (see Map 1). Data by another global forwarder shows containers taking twice as long to reach their destination compared to before the pandemic. Sea-Intelligence data indicates that typically 2% of containership capacity was caught up in delays in a pre-pandemic market, the figure has reached 11% in 2021.
Source: splash247.com
A growing number of forwarders say they are being left behind as shipping lines appear to be focusing on business with larger forwarders and BCOs. Several European carriers are possibly looking at a similar approach to that of Maersk, a U.S. forwarding executive told The Loadstar. While no clear statement has been made from ocean carriers regarding a shut out of forwarders, challenges with securing bookings ranging from lack of space or pricing markups that make a shipment unviable has raised skepticism.
Forwarders point out that the long-term contracts with special conditions offered to bigger players has an immediate impact on smaller and mid-sized forwarders as the contracts are out of reach. “Those contracts are dealt with at the headquarters of the big players, dealing with big volumes and dismissing our local volumes,” a forwarder commented.
Source: The Loadstar
Supply chain finance company Tradeshift said worldwide supply chain activity is headed toward stabilization. Data from the company’s Q4 2021 Index of Global Trade Health shows Q4 global volume growth was level with the previous quarter. Higher transaction volumes suggest supply chain bottlenecks were easing however, suppliers are still struggling to fulfill the existing backlog of orders as reflected by falling invoice volumes.
Meanwhile, China’s strict pandemic protection measures have dampened growth in supply chain activity. There are indications of an extended slowdown across Chinese supply chains which suggest the possibility of further disruption. Cumulative growth in Chinese supply chain activity is at its lowest level since the beginning of the pandemic. In the U.K. although demand remains high, supply issues have dampened activity. As a result, recovery is significantly below the global trend. In the Eurozone, recovery in supply chain activity similarly slipped. Fulfillment issues remain a key concern across the region although the overall picture is less volatile than earlier quarters.
Source: American Journal of Transportation
