“Fears of widespread congestion across west Mediterranean container ports may have abated for the present, but a prolonged continuation of the Red Sea crisis could place serious pressure on the region’s port capacity.”

“The first sailing with be on 11 May with the departure of the 4,250 teu ANL Wangaratta, which is currently deployed on the south-east Asia-west Australia AAXW feeder service jointly operated by CMA CGM, Cosco and OOCL, according to the eeSea liner database.”

“According to the eeSea liner database, there are currently 23 monthly liner services across all carriers between Asia and US east coast, compared with 25 in April last year and 30 in April 2022, which also included one direct India/Middle East-US east coast service.”

“Indeed, maritime and supply chain intelligence firm eeSea’s weekly transpacific update reported Oakland as “still struggling with high congestion”, whereas the neighbouring California ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach “continue to enjoy smooth sailing”.”

“In fact, according to container market intelligence firm eeSea’s January Schedule Reliability Scorecard (SRS) analysis of schedule integrity, the THEA grouping “remains a distant fourth” behind the 2M Alliance, non-alliance lines and the Ocean Alliance.

Moreover, according to eeSea data, THEA languished at the foot of the reliability rankings “pre, during and post-pandemic”.”

“Simon Sundboell, Founder of Consultancy eeSea, opined in a LinkedIn post that Hapag-Lloyd, whose capacity is nearly 1.98 million TEUs, is the largest of THE Alliance’s members, and the grouping will not survive without it.”

“In agreeing to partner with Maersk from February next year on the main east-west trades, Hapag-Lloyd has torn up today’s existing alliance structure with its current group, THE Alliance suddenly finding itself with a small global presence.”

“Despite Maersk chief executive Vincent’s Clerc’s repeated assertions that Maersk was set to sail an independent course following the termination of its 2M cooperation with MSC, there was always the suspicion that, come January 2025, Maersk would suddenly look like the most attractive partner on liner shipping’s dancefloor.”

“It was almost like you had a conveyor belt from the shoe factory in Bangladesh to the shop in Chicago,” said Simon Sundboell, founder and CEO of Copenhagen-based maritime intelligence company eeSea. “That’s just not happening anymore. You’re in a world that’s going increasingly from American-controlled unipolar to multipolar globally. You’re going to have a much more fraught supply chain, and every BCO [beneficial cargo owner], importer, exporter, and logistics provider is going to have to deal with that going forward. The Houthis are just one step in that.”

“Supply chain bottlenecks – largely due to the Red Sea attacks and Panama Canal restrictions –and expectations of high seasonal demand have seen ocean freight rates rise – but industry stakeholders believe they could fall after the pre-Chinese New Year rush.”

“According to the latest report from maritime and supply chain intelligence company eeSea, there has in fact been an increase in the number of cancelled sailings on the tradelane.
“We are already seeing an uptick in announcements of blank sailings just into the first week of 2024,” said eeSea, which would bring the total to 12 proforma voyages voided by transpacific carriers up to the end of February.”

“Maritime and supply chain intelligence company eeSea has its work cut out keeping track of the “hidden” or unconfirmed diversions.

In the absence of any official confirmation from operators, eeSea is relying on AIS and ship captains’ next port updates, when given, to track progress of vessels.”

“Panama Canal draught restrictions on one side of the world and Yemen-based Houthi rebels attacking shipping transiting the Red Sea enroute to the Suez Canal on the other side, are giving ocean carrier ship managers sleepless nights.

According to Destine Ozuygur, head of operations at maritime and supply chain intelligence firm eeSea, diversions of carrier proforma loops are being scaled up as more services avoid the two waterways.”

“The maximum draught of a vessel able to transit the canal as been reduced from 14.9 metres to 13.4 metres, while the number of daily transits has gone down, from the designed capacity of 34 to 38, to 24, which is set to be reduced to 22 on Friday, and again, to 18, by February.

Meanwhile, congestion at the waterway continues to mount on a daily basis, according to liner database eeSea, with 20 box ships waiting to transit – nine at the Pacific entrance and 11 in the Atlantic.”

“Hitherto, the main increase in the inactive containership fleet has come from small and medium-sized vessels, but increasingly carriers are deciding to mothball their surplus large ships that have been displaced by even bigger newbuild arrivals.”

“Analysts at eeSea pointed out that in the January to September period last year, 25% of proforma transpacific capacity was lost equating to 6.1m teu thanks to strikes and bottlenecks, so effective deployed capacity was only 17.5m teu.

In 2023 that number is 3.5m teu of lost capacity amounting to 17%, so effective deployed capacity is 17.1m teu or only a 2.4% drop compared to 2022, according to eeSea data.”

“Draught limits on vessels seeking passage through the Panama Canal continue to show an extensive reach throughout the global supply chain.

The team at eeSea is actively tracking a number of key indicators, including day-to-day congestion just outside of the canal, as well as bordering ports, vessel diversions and the offloading of extraneous cargo.”

“Waiting times for merchant ships have been growing this month, starting out at 15 days on August 1 and have now topped 20 days with a growing backlog of ships waiting at either end of the canal (see map below).

Special auctions are in place for cancelled slots, with very high fees demanded. Liners have reacted by implementing canal transit surcharges of up to $500 per teu.

Data from Denmark’s eeSea shows the average number of boxship transits over the past eight weeks has been 58 per week. Last week it slipped to 55.

“Obviously, if the drought continues, and we only handle, say 55 vessels like last week, the problem will accumulate,” warned eeSea’s founder Simon Sundboell.”

“Tomorrow, the fate of Canada’s west coast ports will be decided, as the ILWU Canada takes a vote on the proposed ‘tentative deal’.

The vote will mean work will stop between 8am and 4pm Pacific Time on Tuesday across all relevant ports.”