Vessel delays remain a significant problem in the Asia – North Europe and China – California trades. According to Alphaliner’s latest research, there has been no improvement yet since our latest trade surveys published last November.
Despite an overall decline in the number of ships waiting for a berth at Los An- geles/Long Beach from a peak of 109 units on January 9 to ‘only’ 76 ships at the start of this week (February 14), the fronthaul transit time for ships sailing from the Far East to these twin ports has increased to an average of 38 days, up from the 28 days at the time of our latest report in mid-November (see Al- phaliner Newsletter 2021-47).
Meanwhile, vessel delays for ships on a full Far East – North Europe round voy- age are also unchanged from early November, the date of our last survey of this trade (see Alphaliner Newsletter 2021-45). The 14,000 – 24,000 teu ships on this route still require on average 17 days more than their pro forma schedules to reach Central China for their next westbound trip.
Once again, our data shows that carriers with good terminal arrangements in Los Angeles or Long Beach can bypass the waiting queues.
In the Far East – North Europe trade, skipping ports calls still appears to be the only way to avoid or limit lengthy delays. Vessels that stick to pro forma sched- ules are experiencing the biggest delays.
Our analysis of fronthaul Central China – LA/LB transit times provides a snapshot of today’s market. We identified 30 container ships arriv- ing at berth at LA/LB between February 5 – 11 after a trip ex Far East.
The differences between individual carriers are striking: Matson Navi- gation’s 2,890 teu MANAUWILI and 2,824 teu MAHIMAHI arrived at the SSA Marine Terminal C60 Terminal (a dedicated Matson facility)
in Long Beach on 6 and 10 February, only eleven days after their de- parture from Shanghai.
COSCO is also benefiting from its arrangement with the Long Beach Container Terminal (LBCT), which was previously owned by COSCO subsidiary OOCL, and is today controlled by Macquarie. The 13,800 teu sisters COSCO SHIPPING ROSE and COSCO SHIPPING AZALEA
deployed in the ‘SEAX’ service, berthed at LBCT on February 7 and 8 after transits of only 18 and 14 days respectively from China.
Controlling a stake in a Californian terminal is not much use however if the facility is congested. The 11,660 teu MSC LUCIANA deployed in MSC’s Sentosa service arrived at TTI Pier T (where MSC’s sister firm
TIL is an 80% stakeholder) some 64 days after a trip from Cai Mep, Vietnam. Two 2M ships operated by MSC’s 2M partner Maersk rec- orded transit times of 51 – 58 days from China to TTI.
Newcomers to the Transpacific trade usually face longer transit times as they do not yet have established relations with a terminal. Jin Jiang’s 1,713 teu AS SERENA arrived at the LA Trapac terminal on February 9, no less than 65 days after its departure from Shanghai.
Alphaliner also looked at ships arriving in Shanghai, Ningbo or Xia- men ex North Europe for their next voyage. The 23,112 teu CMA CGM RIVOLI of the FAL1 service (sixth OCEAN Alliance loop) arrived back in Asia on time as the ship skipped calls at Yantian (westbound), Marsaxlokk and Tianjin-Xingang (eastbound).
Average round trip duration for all seven OCEAN Alliance loops how- ever stood at 93 days, compared to an average pro froma round voy- age time of 78 days.
The 2M faced the same average delay, despite the 18,340 teu MA- RIE MAERSK (AE10 / Silk Service) arriving back on time in Ningbo. The 17,816 teu EDITH MAERSK (AE7 / Condor) had an exceptionally long round voyage of 117 days, which might be explained by the fact that most of the ships arriving in China last week, were in Europe dur- ing the Christmas period.
THE Alliance is still paying a price for fully adhering to its pro forma schedules and not skipping any port. That explains why its latest ships, performing three Central China to North Europe sailings, ar- rived back in the Far East after a round trip of more than 100 days.
