Congestion in the US West Port is expected to ease! CMA CGM, Wanhai, and Israel will no longer call Los Angeles Port
The container freight and leasing market continues to flourish after the Spring Festival, and analysts predict that favorable conditions for carriers and shipowners will continue until at least the second half of the year.
The demand for the Asia-Europe trade route is strong. Daniel Richards, a container ship analyst at the International Maritime Strategy MSI, predicts that due to the backlog of orders during the Lunar New Year period and a new round of stimulus policies, the upsurge of the route will continue into the second quarter. , The congestion at the US West Port is expected to ease.
The US's huge imports overwhelmed the two major Western US container ports. According to data from the Port of Los Angeles, the import volume in January was 518,000 TEUs, equivalent to 60% of the port's total container throughput in the first quarter of last year.
The port’s forecast for the remaining week of February indicates that Los Angeles will reach 500,000 teu imports this month, with the detailed information on the list of imported containers arriving on board in the first week of March increasing by 217% from the same week in 2020.
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Nevertheless, the severely congested West Coast ports are expected to usher in an effective solution. Some container ships will be diverted to other ports on the West Coast of the United States. Many shipping companies have also responded actively.
In the past month or two, shipping companies have announced several new trans-Pacific route services that neither call Los Angeles nor Long Beach.
Zim's newly launched ZX2 expedited trans-Pacific route will call at the Port of Tacoma. The new route will start operations in mid-March, with the order of call ports: Lin Chaban, Gaimei Port, Yantian, Los Angeles, Tacoma, and then back to Lin Chaban.
In addition, from mid-March, the shipping company Wan Hai will increase the existing two trans-Pacific routes to four, including the new Pacific Northwest route from North Asia to Seattle and Oakland, which will completely ignore Southern California. . The ports of call are: Kaohsiung, Yantian, Shanghai, Ningbo, Seattle, Oakland, and finally return to Kaohsiung.
In addition, CMA CGM launched the new Golden Gate Bridge service (a reorganization of the previous SeaPriority Express service). The new route maiden voyage on February 12, no longer calling the Port of Los Angeles, and will directly reach the Port of Oakland from Asia. The ports of call are: Shanghai, Yantian, Oakland, Seattle, Kaohsiung and Shanghai.
MSC started its Chinook service in December last year, providing services at the ports of Yantian, Shanghai, Busan and Vancouver.
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It is also worth noting that from recent data, the congestion in the west of the United States continues to spread to the northern ports, and there are long queues of ships waiting to enter the Port of Oakland.
The Port of Oakland is also not optimistic. Hapag-Lloyd said that as shipping companies avoided the congestion of Los Angeles and Long Beach ports and diverted to Oakland to obtain berths, this also led to an increase in the number of ships waiting to berth at the Port of Oakland.
