The global average for ship waiting times has nearly doubled between the first seven months of 2019 and the first seven months of the year, while ship reliability is declining according to international shipping experts, Drewry.
And the cause?
Ports.
Drewry points out it it’s not just short-term weather issues as a larger and larger share of a vessel’s time in port is spent waiting for a berth rather than being handled at the terminal, “pointing to congestion pressures … waiting for a berth contributed to the 31% jump in average time spent by a containership in a port between 2019 and this year… containerships are demonstrably less productive in ports and spend more time waiting for a berth than they were before the Covid pandemic,” Drewry says.
Drewry points to several issues driving the change.
Within the control of terminal operators is the potential for increased automation of terminal operations and port systems. However, according to Drewry, terminal operators’ primary objective is to maximise return on capital and not to minimise ship waiting times.
Outside of the control of terminal operators are such matters as weather, tariff changes and geopolitics, among other.
Partly with control is that terminal operator no longer have spare capacity to recover from operational disruptions.
A terminal running at 90% berth utilisation takes roughly one week to recover from a one-day disruption, whereas a terminal running at 75% utilisation can recover within two days, Drewry adds. Terminal operators on average expanded capacity by 21% between 2019 and 2026, below the growth of 28% in volumes during the same period, Drewry pointed out. Although, the maritime experts were quick to point out, that is not true in every case as Singapore expanded its port capacity slighgtly faster than the voluem.
“Drewry does not see a single, global trend towards “under-investment” in port capacity but a stronger focus on asset utilisation, which increases the risk of port congestion,” the maritime consultants concluded.
Further reading
Drewry. Port congestion is getting worse in container shipping: who is responsible? https://www.drewry.co.uk/maritime-research-opinion-browser/port-congestion-is-getting-worse-in-container-shipping-who-is-responsible?
