The big port in Northern Europe is also blocked! 2M suspends call for six weeks; Hapag-Lloyd suspends bookings there
Jim
Sunny Worldwide Logistics
2021-07-14 17:05:32
As demand soars, market participants need to make long-term preparations for the current congestion situation. Following Rotterdam, Hamburg, Felixstowe, and Le Havre, Antwerp is currently becoming the latest Nordic port affected by the chain reaction of congestion, and the waiting time for ships to berth has been extended to 5 days. The delay in the shipping schedule prompted the 2M Alliance to temporarily cancel the Antwerp call on the AE55/Griffin ring for a period of six weeks, starting with the 23936TEU "MSC Diletta" ship departing from China in the 28th week. In addition, the “MSC LA SPEZIA” round of the loop will be “postponed down” from week 29 to week 30. The revised ETA will arrive in Shanghai on August 1, 2021, to cope with the current challenging market situation.
Maersk stated that due to the "high storage yard density and particularly long waiting times for ships", the company has decided to skip the AE55 route to dock in Antwerp. MSC stated that Antwerp's landside and berth congestion "affected the reliability of the shipping schedule and caused shipment delays." Prior to this, the 2M Alliance’s AE6/Lion service will skip Le Havre and retain the stop in Antwerp. The ports where these two services call in Europe are updated as follows: Griffin service: Rotterdam-Le Havre-Felixstowe, to replace Rotterdam-Antwerp-Felixstowe Lion service: Sines-Antwerp-Felixstowe, to replace Sines-Antwerp-Le Havre-Felixstowe The following ships served by Griffin/AE55 will skip Antwerp:
The following ships served by Lion/AE6 skip Le Havre:
Although during this period of time, the French hub port will lose 2M's scheduled call. However, both Maersk and MSC describe Le Havre as "induced call", which means that if there is not enough freight to make it economically viable, or there may be delays in operations, 2M can still decide not to call. However, due to the continued high demand for alternative ports of call and insufficient allocation, carriers may be forced to unload some Antwerp containers in Rotterdam, which will increase the port’s current high yard density and may delay the delivery of containers. However, Maersk said that the situation in the Nordic container hub is improving. In the port operations update last week, the company stated that there are currently no ship berthing delays in ports such as Bremerhaven, Hamburg, Felixstowe or Gdansk. In Rotterdam, Maersk reported that berthing was delayed by 1-2 days, while berthing in Antwerp was delayed by 3-5 days. The company is optimistic about the prospects of the container terminal. Maersk said: "Although the situation is still unstable, we expect that the status quo of Nordic ports will improve in the next 30 days." CMA CGM previously stated that it plans to suspend its South American route in Le Havre for three months due to port congestion and inefficient operations. Prior to this, The Alliance also issued a similar statement, saying that due to the severe congestion in Rotterdam, it was forced to call on 7 voyages to the Port of Rotterdam.
Hapag-Lloyd announced a few days ago that from now on, it will not accept bookings from the following countries/regions to and from Bahrain: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Colombo, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Yemen and Qatar. The German shipping company stated that it is currently facing restrictions on space for feeder connections and therefore cannot accept any new bookings until further notice. In addition, Hapag-Lloyd recently announced that from the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, Pakistan to the Nordic countries and the Mediterranean, it will increase shipping costs for 20' and 40' general-purpose containers, including high-cubic containers. All new prices will be applied to all containers from August 1st and will be valid until August 14th.
