Cargo ships seeking to offload their containers at ports in Northern Europe are facing delays of up to 70 hours due to over-congestion. And some port operators are afraid the delays could get even higher.
According to a report issued by the logistics technology firm CargoSmart, severe backups are occurring in ports at Rotterdam, the Netherlands; Antwerp, Belgium; and Hamburg, Germany, among other northern European ports.
A spokesman for the Hamburg port said the delays are causing unforeseen problems.
“You can imagine that, for example, export containers booked on a container vessel arrive in time in the port and then they are parked on a container terminal waiting for the delayed vessel some days,” the spokesman told the website JOC. “This brings stowage problems to container terminals. These terminals are specialized in just receiving boxes and loading them onto ships — or in case of import boxes — on rail trucks or barges for transport. Container terminals are not designed as big parking places for boxes.”
Despite the delays, European ports are handling more cargo containers than ever before. In Hamburg — Europe’s second largest port — a record 4.8 million “twenty-foot equivalent unit” (TEU) cargo containers were handled during the first half of this year. That’s a 7% increase over the same period last year.