Many cargo rollovers at Asian transhipment ports

Lloyd’s List: Early indications suggest that significant container rollovers and subsequent supply chain disruptions will continue far into the fourth quarter across Asia.

Supply chain disruption at leading Asian transhipment ports eased marginally for shippers in September compared with August, but remained far higher than the same period a year earlier, according to Ocean Insights.

Data shows that in most leading Asian container shipping hubs, between a fifth and a third of transhipment cargo was subject to rollovers, adding to the supply chain disruption experienced by shippers in many parts of the world because of capacity and equipment shortages.

“Container lines were taken by surprise by the surge in demand for shipments as coronavirus lockdowns were eased during the summer,” said Josh Brazil, Chief Operations Officer at Ocean Insights. 

“Schedules are clearly still suffering significant disruption and, in many ports, this is being exacerbated by equipment shortages which are adding to rate inflation and logistics bottlenecks and inefficiencies.

“As a result, carriers are frequently rolling cargo, which can result in significant delays and knock-on costs for customers, especially if they are not notified by the line in advance, which customers tell us is quite common.

“Early indications in October suggest supply chain disruptions and significant rollovers will continue deep into the fourth quarter as peak season demand continues to surprise.”

Singapore, the world’s second-largest container hub, saw rollovers drop from 33.3% in August to 30.2% last month. That compared with 21.5% of cargo rolled over in September 2019.

Rollovers are calculated by Ocean Insights as the percentage of cargo arriving at the port for transhipment that was shipped on a different vessel than originally scheduled.

In Hong Kong, 24.6% of cargo was rolled at the port’s many terminals last month, down from 32.2% in August, but still significantly more disruptive when compared with September 2019 when only 15.3% of cargo was affected.

Malaysia’s port of Tanjung Pelepas saw 22.7% of box traffic received last month rolled over compared with 29.2% in August and 13.8% in September 2019, while Port Klang saw 28.9% of cargo rolled last month compared with 42.3% in August and 24.7% in September 2019.

At Ningbo-Zhoushan, the world’s third-largest container port in 2019 by throughput, 30.1% of cargo was rolled last month, down from 43% in August, while Dubai (Jebel Ali port) saw rollovers drop to 31.8% in September from 34.9% in August.

Shanghai, the world’s largest container port, saw rollovers decline to 25.5% last month from 26.5% in August. However, performance improved when compared with September 2019 when 28.9% of cargo transhipped at the port’s multitude of terminals was rolled over.

Busan Port, the world’s sixth-largest box hub in 2019, saw cargo rollovers increase to 30.4% in September, up from 28% in August and only 15.2% in the same period a year earlier. 

At the port of Qingdao container rollovers spiked to 25.2% in September compared with 13% the previous month, while Shenzhen, one of the best port performers in terms of rollover ratios, saw just 14.1% of cargo rolled over last month, up from 9.4% in August and 11.7% in September 2019.

Ocean Insights is a real-time and predictive ocean container tracking data provider to freight forwarders and shippers.