By Tina Wu     Photo：distelAPPArath ，Link：Pixabay

As of late May, the world's fourth largest container port Yantian Port started to impose strict restrictions on its export capacity, now leaving around half of its normal level. Average awaiting time of the vessels can be longer than 16 days. More than 160,000 FEU of containers are estimated to be waiting for export as soon as the port resumes all services. Although alternate ports nearby, such as Shekou, Nansha and Shanghai, took over some of the awaiting vessels, their lower capacities compared to Yantian Port can hardly handle the worsening port congestion problem. For cancelled or postponed orders to Yantian Port, they are to be retained or reordered as early as the middle of July. This suggests that piles of containers can only be stocked up at the port before the Covid-19 cases there are controlled.

Once the port starts to operate to its normal capacity, it could worsen the container backlog in the U.S. just before the retail shipping peak starting from August. The ripple effects of vessel delays in Yantian are likely to be seen to both of the U.S. coasts in one month, sources said. The sluggish flow of supply chain in the shipping industry could even threaten the cargo volume for Christmas sales season now that one quarter of the export and import from China to the U.S. is slowed down.