Mitridat/Блог/Container ship traffic jam in the US. What to expect
Container ship traffic jam in the US. What to expect
The container shortage in China has reached an all-time high. Experts explain the current situation by the uneven recovery of the global economy among coronavirus pandemic. At the beginning of the year, due to the pandemic, the demand for raw materials and goods from China significantly decreased. That forced the maritime lines to reduce the number of runs. However, in the third quarter of 2020 though, the world started to emerge from quarantine. The Chinese economy has recovered faster than the other countries’. The lines were not ready for such an increase in traffic volumes. All that led to the lack of shipping containers and significant delivery delays. A huge number of container ships are standing oh hold for weeks waiting to be unloaded.World trading companies faced a transport crisis caused by container shortage. Beside sthat the grave rates increase occurred, at some directions to and from China the prices rose five or even ten times.Now the main cargo traffic from China is heading to the United States, and the other countries only get what is left.Unfortunately, the result of this global issue could not leave the container shipping from the United States behind.At this point, there is a struggle with the containers arriving to the overloaded terminal. The carriers fail to export them on time. The terms of loading container ships from the US are constantly moved because the large amount of containers are sent empty back to China. Also, due to schedule malfunction many loading sites are overloaded and are unable to receive cars. The port terminals of California are facing the biggest trouble. In addition to delays at the port of shipment, there are also difficulties with loading containers at the transshipment port.Container ships spend up to 1.5 months in the port terminals beause of traffic jams and a lack of vessels. All that has a negative impact on the quality of services and the delivery periods from the US to Ukraine and Europe. The freight rates for USA-Ukraine deliveries have already increased in 30 %. The experts are expecting for some kind of normalizing of the shipping situation not earlier than in a couple of months.
