International ports

Shanghai’s lockdown has continued this month, although carriers such as Maersk and CMA CGM said regional logistics and supply chains are gradually improving.

Powering its ships with green methanol will come with a significant increase in fuel costs for Maersk, but the carbon-free fuel offers greater scalability than other options.

It was a positive start to the year for the port of Hamburg as Baltic volume shifting from Russia and a rise in China cargo pushed up first quarter throughput.

A work stoppage this week at Colombo in Sri Lanka was just the latest blow to operations at the key transshipment hub, with the ripple effects being felt at other ports in the region.

Rotterdam believes the gradual reopening of factories in China’s locked-down manufacturing areas will release slow and steady volumes into the ocean supply chain rather than unleashing a huge wave of cargo.

A Port of Rotterdam initiative has identified a way to make green hydrogen available at scale for European industry and inland transport providers in a move designed to help meet regional zero-carbon targets.

Capacity at the port of Antwerp is already maxed out, so a merger with the nearby port of Zeebrugge could provide some relief when the expected wave of cargoes arrives once COVID-19 measures are lifted in China.

Exporters face additional headwinds later this week when China starts a nationwide five-day Labor Day holiday which is likely to further stymie cargo movements.

Container supply chain disruption and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has left Rotterdam and Antwerp unable to match the volume growth experienced in last year’s first quarter.

The ongoing COVID lockdown in Shanghai while the rest of the word is open for business suggests that building new major production facilities in China is increasingly looking like a risky strategy, writes analyst Lars Jensen.

Key ports in Asia are closely watching the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns in China and taking steps to ensure their gateways don’t begin to suffer congestion and delays as a result.

Work on the second phase of the JNPT project was due to begin in December 2019, but slipped to 2022 due to COVID-linked disruption and project approval delays.

While Shanghai port remains operational, the severe shortage of trucking capacity means the port is slowly being filled with import cargo that cannot be cleared, and widespread factory closures will likely hit export volumes.

After reaching its maximum capacity last year, the Port of Salalah is looking to add roughly 1.5 million TEU of annual handling capacity through equipment purchases and a potential berth expansion.

The Montreal Port Authority is partnering with Canadian National Railway to develop intermodal service to the port’s proposed Contrecoeur container terminal.

Reduced trucking capacity in Shanghai and the closure of factories and warehouses there have caused some ocean freight to be diverted, with Ningbo, Qingdao, and Tianjin topping the list of alternative ports.

Analysts worry that a lack of long-term cargo growth in the Arabian Gulf could result in large amounts of unused capacity at the competing ports of Jebel Ali in Dubai and Khalifa in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Carriers and forwarders say Shanghai will be hit by a raft of blank sailings through early May amid a now-indefinite COVID lockdown, while carriers are also implementing ad hoc omissions at the world’s busiest container port.

The Panama Canal Authority is proposing a new tolling plan that would assess the first fees on empty containers returning from North America to Asia.

Carriers said while Shanghai’s main container terminals at Yangshan and Waigaoqiao remain open, many depots and warehouses are shut, and trucking is severely curtailed.

The Port of Vancouver CEO issues an urgent plea for development of more terminal capacity on Canada’s West Coast, but terminal operator GCT Canada says conditions are not as dire as the port chief claims.

MSC has deployed an ad-hoc vessel between India’s Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust and Mundra Port in a bid to connect shipments hit by vessel skips or schedule changes.

Analysts agree ports in the Middle East have far more capacity than they need to service current volumes, but opinions are split as to whether demand will eventually catch up to capacity.

A severe shortage of container trucks at Colombo is the latest pain point for shippers on the Indian subcontinent. 

Yard restrictions at Shenzhen were implemented just as many factories and warehouses reopened after authorities lifted a week-long shutdown imposed to contain a COVID-19 outbreak.

With coastal connectivity improvements in India, mainliners now have an opportunity to aggregate enough cargo to achieve the critical mass needed to make a direct call commercially viable.

The worsening schedule reliability in the Indian shipping market is poised to weaken further given the COVID-linked lockdowns that have disrupted terminal operations at key ports in China.

While major terminals and depots in Shenzhen and Shanghai are operating, productivity is being affected by port workers quarantining at home and tougher restrictions on truck drivers.

Historically, Indian containerized inbound volumes have exceeded containerized exports by a quantifiable margin, creating headhaul-backhaul trade imbalances.

Transshipment trade development had been a challenge for India’s DP World Cochin since it opened a decade ago, but tariff incentives and coastal network expansion has changed that.

The Port of Vancouver, still hobbled from recent weather disruptions, is bracing for a flare up in port and rail congestion as import volumes are forecasted to spike this week.

Fresh disruptions loom on cargo shipped from China as authorities enact widespread lockdowns amid a new surge in COVID-19 cases in key port cities.

Canada’s federal government will partially fund a new container exam station at the Port of Halifax which aims to speed up container flow off its docks.

Most of the world’s major carriers have now suspended shipments to and from Russia, severely restricting commercial maritime access to the country in the aftermath of its invasion of Ukraine.

Growing truck queues are snarling operations at India’s main container port, raising the prospect of delays to both imports and exports and putting reefer shipments at risk.

The new terminal for Busan comes as the port has been plagued by congestion for months, leading carriers to suffer schedule delays or skip the port on European, trans-Pacific, and intra-Asia services.

An order for new cranes from APM Terminals Mumbai will increase its handling capacity by 10 percent and allow it to work larger vessels.

US resin exporters are finding a much tougher shipping market to start 2022 as export gateways deal with unreliable vessel schedules and tight capacity.

Patrick, the biggest terminal operator in Australia, was the last of the major terminal companies to agree to a new deal with the Maritime Union of Australia following multi-year agreements last year between the MUA and the other leading terminal operators in the country.

US resin exports fell last year amid limited production capacity and strong domestic demand.