Record 4.3m TEU Waiting for a Berth as Typhoons Hit Chinese Ports Again
Shanghai Yangshan waits reach 11 days for non-Gemini services, with Ningbo also backed up
More than 4.3 million TEU is waiting to berth at container ports worldwide, above the previous peak of about 4 million recorded during the pandemic disruption, and a fresh round of typhoons on China's east coast is keeping the largest hubs from clearing the backlog.
Shanghai and Ningbo were expected to close from 26 to 29 August because of Typhoon Saudel. At Shanghai Yangshan, waits stood at five to seven days for Gemini vessels over 366 metres, eight to 10 days for smaller Gemini ships and seven to 11 days for non-Gemini services. Ningbo was recording four to five days for Gemini services and three to six for the rest.
The closures follow earlier disruption from Typhoons Bavi and Dolphin. Waiting times had already reached up to 12 days at Yangshan and seven to eight days at Waigaoqiao in mid-August, feeding through into vessel delays, cargo rollovers, port omissions, equipment shortages and longer truck turnarounds.
The gap between landfalls is the part that matters operationally. In a normal season, terminals use the interval between storms to work off accumulated vessel and yard backlogs; this summer that recovery window has been repeatedly compressed, in ports that rank among the most efficient and most heavily automated in the world.
Carriers are cutting calls to protect their schedules. One container ship was set to omit Shanghai on weather grounds, following earlier omissions on the same service, and a list of further vessels scheduled to skip the port has been circulated to customers.
The stranded capacity now represents about 12.6 percent of the global container fleet, below the pandemic peak of 15.7 percent. A separate estimate puts 1.7 million TEU, some five percent of deepsea capacity, absorbed by continuous delays, against an average of 2.2 percent across 2011 to 2019. The extra 2.8 percentage points above that baseline amount to roughly one million TEU of missing space, close to the entire fleet of the world's eighth largest container line.
The squeeze is showing up in rates. The Shanghai Containerized Freight Index has risen sharply since the start of the Iran war, and charter rates continue to firm as carriers look for extra tonnage. Congestion is also building at the Panama Canal ahead of a further cut in transit slots in September, where a recent auction slot reportedly went for $5.3 million.
