2021 was a record-breaking year for the Port of Los Angeles—and not in a good way. On the plus side, the port handled 10.7m TEU, a 13% increase over its previous record. Unfortunately, in news that will surprise no one, for the same period the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach also had record-breaking years in terms of congestion and wait times. When the year started, a queue of 30 to 40 container ships was considered bad. By the end of the year, a queue of 100 was considered normal.
Gene Seroka, Executive Director of the Port of LA, spoke at the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association’s seventh annual “State of the Port” event, urging the industry to come together to address current challenges facing the supply chain. The news isn’t good for North American ports in general. New KPIs show North American ports have the worst bottlenecks. And unfortunately, this isn’t predicted to change anytime soon.
Current indicators show that delays have reached 11.6 million TEU waiting days—where the normal is less than 1 million. This is according to a new report from Kuehne + Nagel called the Seaexplorer Disruption Indicator. Its purpose is to measure port efficiency, giving cargo owners and service providers better visibility of port conditions.
Despite all this bad news, the Container Dwell Fee that the Harbor Commissions of both ports announced in October 2021 has been put on hold once again, with plans to reassess in another week.
To add another wrinkle to global supply chain issues, as of January 22, all foreign truckers trying to enter the US must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. This is despite the trucking industry expressing grave concern that the new mandate will further impact an already chaotic supply chain.
Finally, moving to the east, the Yantian International Container Terminal (YICT) in southern China, one of three sub-ports in Shenzhen, is now limiting intake. Containers have started to pile up thanks to exporters rushing out cargo before the start of the Chinese New Year.
