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After the ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach announced a week later, most shipping lines published the emergency port surcharge will be imposed from November 15th.

10 Nov 2021

By Arthur Chen       Photo:Klaus

Containers stranded due to customs inspection are not exempt from emergency surcharges. Containers can’t be picked up due to no chassis, surcharge cannot be waived neither.

My post on November 4, the shipping companies were unclear and kept silent about the important news that the Los Angeles/Long Beach ports will charge container detention surcharge starting from November 1st. After a week past, today the cargo owners and the freight forwarders received notification emails from the shipping lines. Liners forced to accept this surcharge but the surcharge will be passed on to the cargo owners as well as the freight forwarders.  Although various shipping lines have different names for the new surcharge, the most common title is "port emergency surcharge" to express this temporary port surcharge imposed during following 90 days. In short, the shipper must accept these additional costs if they want to have their containers. At present, only these two ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach adopt this emergency surcharge. However, there is rumor that other ports in the United States are also preparing to propose similar surcharges. The reason is the same statement as Los Angeles and Long Beach to speed ​​up carriers to ship empty containers away, or trucks to take laden containers out of the port, or rail transit to inland ramps. In other words, the port has been unable to solve the current logistics bottleneck. They can only implement all measures to force shipping companies, railways, trucks, and cargo owners to take about 40% from the current total of more than 60,000 containers in the port within 90 days, regardless empty or laden, by heavy fines to remove more than 20,000 containers in order to avoid additional major expenses. Only by such way shall there be sufficient space to allow to operate unloading containers from the vessels.

The following is the brief description of the new implementation from Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. This surcharge is called "Emergency Fee" or "Emergency Surcharge" by many shipping lines.  Containers will be moved by trucks to other spots, stay at the ports for 9 days or more and containers moved by rail way to other IPI ramps, stay at the ports for 6 days or more shall be imposed the detention charge. Starting from November 1st, the terminal will begin to charge the “Container Excess Dwell Fee” , the charging standard is 100 US dollars per container, and each container will increase by 100 US dollars every day ! For example, the first day after the expiration date is 100 US dollars; the second day is 200 US dollars; the third day is 300 US dollars; and so on. The accumulative charges for 30 days exceed the expiry date will reach US$46,500! The accumulative charges for 90 days exceed the expiry date will reach 409,500 USD! The charging plan will take effect on November 1st, but the specific penalty will be implemented on November 15th. The two-week grace period is to allow cargo owners to have proper time to clean up the docks. The official implementation time is 90 days. According to the shipping lines, starting from November 15th, all containers at the terminal will be charged retroactively. In other words, all companies that are afraid of being fined by huge surcharges have only 10 days left to clear or transfer containers!

It is understood that the ports have not yet announced the implementation details, and everyone is still wondering now.

According to the latest official explanation released by Maersk. The most controversial, there are 3 key points that shippers and forwarders have to accept.

1. Containers stranded due to customs inspection are not exempt from emergency surcharges.

2. If the container cannot be picked up due to lack of a chassis, the emergency surcharge cannot be waived, and a mandatory fee will still be charged.

3. The terminal will charge this fee to the shipping lines. However, according to the bill of lading and related regulations of each carriers, they will charge the ultimate cargo owners and freight forwarders for such additional fees charged by the port and government agencies.

It is recommended that freight forwarders and cargo owners continue to pay attention to any upcoming news from the shipping lines. One thing is for sure, the formal name -- Container Excess Dwell Fee (emergency surcharge) was approved by the Biden government's special committee to resolve port congestion. It must be implemented, and the liners also accepted it. The shipping lines also announced it will be passed on to the final cargo owners or freight forwarders.

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