Bottlenecks Wear Down World Economy’s Fleet of Container Ships
Bloomberg 12/22/2020
(Bloomberg)
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Container shipping, the backbone of the global trading system, is showing signs of fatigue as the pandemic descends into its darkest days.
Carriers reaping the biggest profits in at least a decade are struggling to operate reliably as bottlenecks worsen around ports from southern England to Shanghai, contorting supply chains for everything from car parts to cosmetics and medical equipment.
Just 50.1% of container vessels arrived on time in November, down from 80% a year earlier and the lowest level in records dating back to 2011, according to a service reliability index compiled by Copenhagen-based Sea-Intelligence. From Asia to North America, on-time arrivals dropped below 30%, less than half the long-run average globally.
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Container shortage hamstrings US and European exporters
The current container shortage is not just affecting Asia ports, but inland exporters in the US and in a number of European countries as well.
US Federal Maritime Commission chairman Michael Khouri highlighted the issue of shipping lines not supplying containers to agricultural exporters inland in the US: “Some ocean carriers –not all– have stated that they will no longer deploy –that is– reposition empty containers to the US interior agricultural areas. Instead, they are expediting empties back to Asia. This abandonment of a significant US export industry –the American agricultural industry– is shutting them out of global markets.”