Growing fears of congestion in Asia are accompanied by an apparent resurgence of delays at U.S. West Coast ports.
Today’s AIS data shows some 30 vessels at anchor in San Pedro Bay, off the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and Maersk has warned its customers that serious delays will occur.
Maersk told its customers that the situation in Southern California had “deteriorated,” with the number of vessels at anchor doubling in recent weeks.
In addition, on the East Coast and in the Southeast, the carrier said there was a two-week backlog in trucking adding to container dwell times, with more difficulties in chassis provisioning.
In addition, rail congestion is exacerbating delays in deliveries of U.S. imports and the return of empty containers to Asia for export.
According to the Danish carrier, the average dwell time in the U.S. has increased by 35%, which means 35% less capacity overall.
“In recent weeks we have started to see a rapid increase in average container dwell time,” Maersk said, adding, “As a related impact, long dwell containers is also adding to the growing shortage of chassis in much of the Midwest and parts of the Northeast.
“This is now compounded by railcar shortages and rail yard capacity constraints that have led to an overall reduction in the number of services from the West Coast.
“To conclude, in the Pacific Southwest, chassis availability once again remains the main issue, with several terminals now rejecting bobtails to maximize throughput. Rail dwells in the Midwest are a growing issue, as railcar availability remains limited.”
