The supply chain chaos that we have known since the beginning of the corona pandemic is causing considerable problems at the ports and is now also causing a traffic jam in the North Sea.
There is no relief in sight, on the contrary: In Germany, the wage dispute in the port industry is only just reaching its peak.
If there were strikes in the next few weeks, the situation would worsen again.
Susanne Preuss
Business correspondent in Hamburg.
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Dozens of ships, each loaded with tens of thousands of containers, are waiting in the German Bight to call at Hamburg or Bremerhaven.
According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), the situation is even more dramatic in front of the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp.
In front of the ports of Germany, Holland and Belgium, 2 percent of the global cargo capacity was stuck and could not be loaded or unloaded.
What sounds like a small amount to the layman is put into perspective by a look at Shanghai, where, according to the IfW, around 3 percent of the global freight capacity has accumulated in traffic jams due to the two-month lockdown.
This has a significant impact on the German economy.
The IfW estimates the volume of exports that could not reach Germany from China due to the lockdown in Shanghai at 700 million euros.
Even if more ships are now leaving Shanghai again after the end of the lockdown, this does not lead to relaxation.
Instead, the congestion problem in the destination ports will worsen if the container ships are to be handled there.
Coming from the Suez Canal, the ships first head for Antwerp, then Rotterdam, then Hamburg, and everywhere they encounter the same problems: Storage space has become scarce in the ports, so we have to wait.
"We are a handling company, not a storage company," emphasizes a spokesman for the Hamburg port operator HHLA - and in no way describes the reality that
As soon as the Corona delivery chaos first became a problem, HHLA organized space in Hamburg for an additional 4,000 containers.
Now the storage area is being expanded again.
This provides relief, but is not an efficient solution to the problem.
While port handling now often works via automated bridges, such an improvised storage area creates additional work.
Manually controlled loading and unloading and driving back and forth requires more staff, more technology and more diesel.
There are many reasons why the situation has deteriorated in this way.
One of them is apparently the overbooking of ships.
In the expectation that some containers will not be brought to the booked ship in time anyway, the shipping companies sell more capacity than is available.
Customers therefore have to pay significantly higher prices for containers that need to be transported safely.
If you only paid a low freight rate, you have to wait.
This procedure is now becoming a burden for the ports, because in this way more and more containers are waiting in line for the next ship.
The ports can demand money for this, but that is of little use in solving the problem.
And it's not just export containers that are now waiting around, imports are also becoming more and more protracted.
This could partly be due to the fact that the importers have long since procured the sorely missed goods in other ways.
It could also be due to the fact that customers have long since dropped out, especially now that the economy has clouded over due to the Ukraine war.
Third round of negotiations on Friday
So far, this has not been very transparent for HHLA.
At best, the port operator knows whether dangerous goods are being loaded, but otherwise no one has been interested in the contents of the containers so far.
Now that's changing. Never before have there been so many calls to major customers, so many appeals made, true to the motto: Every container that is picked up helps.
The tense logistics on land also make the situation difficult.
Storms like the last one over Bavaria cause bottlenecks on the train.
Not so much in this country, but in other European countries a lack of truck drivers is also a problem when trying to transport the containers onward.
Some shipping companies are now trying evasive manoeuvres.
Lower Saxony's Economics Minister Bernd Althusmann, for example, is already eagerly promoting the Jade-Weser-Port in Wilhelmshaven, and the German liner shipping company Hapag-Lloyd (which in turn has a stake in both ports) has already switched a service from Hamburg to Wilhelmshaven.
However, the hinterland logistics are currently not comparable to Hamburg, which is why advertising with other shipping companies has apparently not yet been so fruitful.
In this situation, the idea that the port workers could go on strike seems like a nightmare scenario.
The third round of negotiations is scheduled for Friday.
The ZDS, Central Association of German Seaport Companies, has offered up to 7 percent more income.
The demands of the Verdi union are significantly higher.
In addition to inflation compensation, the remuneration is to increase by EUR 1.20 per hour, and a container allowance of EUR 1,200 per year is to be paid.