Geneva Olson
Expert Storyteller
I just thought I would share some insight on shipping. I am in Houston and a good friend of mine is an Ocean Carrier employee. She gave me and my friends some insight on what is going on with the shipping supply chain. This is directly from HER, not me so I have zero opinion on the matter:
"More imported volume than ever recorded. Lack of space to carry the volumes no matter how big we keep building the ships, not enough man power or space at the terminals in the ports, not enough truckers to pull the containers off the ports to free up space. People in shipping have been quite overwhelmed since the pandemic started in China before it made it here and it only continues to worsen every day. .. Estimated recover day is now 1st quarter 2023. Every time we get to mid field, they move the goal post. The trucking shortage has always been an issue because no one wants to drive a truck anymore but you add to it that truckers that haul containers make less because they are paid by the load and are sitting in line at the ports 4,6,8 hours to turn in a box they may only turn 2 loads a day...When there is a lack of truckers and people have loads scheduled with a trucker but the ship is delayed three weeks because of congestion this one box loses its place in line and then has to get back in line to be pulled and maybe that's weeks from then. Multiply that by thousands of containers coming off of maybe 15-20 ships a week per port. This started with shut down factories in Asia due to Covid. So many workers infected they had to shut down entire plants. Led to empty shelves. Then once the plants come back online there still aren't enough workers so production is slow at best compiled by shortages of base materials to make finished products. Then a flood of buying which ramped up volumes. We have complete ports that the congestion is so bad we won't even call the port because it would keep the ship there too long. You only have so many slots on a 10,000 teu vessel and due to draft restrictions in ports and canals they weigh out long before you can reach full capacity. You get the ship in to a US port that again is short of workers working numerous ships at a time pulling the containers and stacking them in full ports waiting for a lack of truckers to pull them out the gates, unload them and get the empty brought back in. Every carrier has deployed ever bit of space they have. You cant just keep building bigger ships the ports don't have the infrastructure to handle them. "
"More imported volume than ever recorded. Lack of space to carry the volumes no matter how big we keep building the ships, not enough man power or space at the terminals in the ports, not enough truckers to pull the containers off the ports to free up space. People in shipping have been quite overwhelmed since the pandemic started in China before it made it here and it only continues to worsen every day. .. Estimated recover day is now 1st quarter 2023. Every time we get to mid field, they move the goal post. The trucking shortage has always been an issue because no one wants to drive a truck anymore but you add to it that truckers that haul containers make less because they are paid by the load and are sitting in line at the ports 4,6,8 hours to turn in a box they may only turn 2 loads a day...When there is a lack of truckers and people have loads scheduled with a trucker but the ship is delayed three weeks because of congestion this one box loses its place in line and then has to get back in line to be pulled and maybe that's weeks from then. Multiply that by thousands of containers coming off of maybe 15-20 ships a week per port. This started with shut down factories in Asia due to Covid. So many workers infected they had to shut down entire plants. Led to empty shelves. Then once the plants come back online there still aren't enough workers so production is slow at best compiled by shortages of base materials to make finished products. Then a flood of buying which ramped up volumes. We have complete ports that the congestion is so bad we won't even call the port because it would keep the ship there too long. You only have so many slots on a 10,000 teu vessel and due to draft restrictions in ports and canals they weigh out long before you can reach full capacity. You get the ship in to a US port that again is short of workers working numerous ships at a time pulling the containers and stacking them in full ports waiting for a lack of truckers to pull them out the gates, unload them and get the empty brought back in. Every carrier has deployed ever bit of space they have. You cant just keep building bigger ships the ports don't have the infrastructure to handle them. "
