China shipping: Yantian port delays already worse than those caused by Suez Canal debacle in March
- Weeks of containment efforts following outbreaks of Covid-19 among dockworkers in China’s Pearl River Delta have caused severe shipping backlogs and inventory shortages
- Worst-hit port is the Yantian International Container Terminal, which is the largest single port in China and accounts for 10.5 per cent of its foreign trade container throughput
The Port of Yantian, which is at the epicentre of China’s latest coronavirus-containment efforts, is creating massive headaches across the maritime shipping world and further complicating the process of reopening the global economy.
From June 1-15, a total of 298 container vessels with a combined total capacity of more than 3 million 20-foot equivalent units – the standard measure for freight container volume, known as TEU – skipped the southern container port in Guangdong province, according to project44, a shipping and logistics service platform.
That marked a 300 per cent monthly increase in what are known as blank sailings – when a vessel skips a port along its scheduled route or cancels the journey entirely because it is not allowed to discharge or load cargo – according to analysts with the platform.
Due to Covid-19 and a significant volume push since the end of last year, terminals are becoming global bottlenecks
Over the last two weeks, the seven-day average for median dwell times – denoting how long export containers spend at the Yantian International Container Terminal – doubled, reaching 23.06 days on June 15, project44 said.
