European ports worried about maritime traffic congestion in Shanghai

A container ship in the port of Rotterdam (illustrative image).

AP - Peter Dejong

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

European ports are worried about further congestion of maritime traffic.

Shanghai's current difficulties in dealing with the Covid-19 epidemic could cause a cascading effect leading to a tidal wave of containers in Europe in the coming weeks.

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The maps are alarming for port terminal managers.

More than 200 ships are waiting off Shanghai.

Operations are slow with an average wait of seven days before being able to moor.

Lamia Kerdjoudj-Belkaid is secretary general of the European Federation of Private Port Operators (Feport): “ 

Once activities resume in Shanghai, a good part of these ships will come to Europe, therefore to European ports.

Given the current saturation, which is generally around 80-90%, we will not be able to accommodate them.

Everyone considers that the ports will manage.

We simply say: "

No, that is not possible".

 When we reach saturated physical capacities, there is no other way than to say: “

No, we cannot recover your containers”

 .

Dysfunctions in the supply chain

The risks of congestion in European ports and terminals are therefore very high.

Chronic dysfunctions in the supply chain cannot last any longer, according to Lamia Kerdjoudj Belkaid: "

 It's like in a car park: if you assign a place to a car in a car park for such a day, and the car only arrives three days later.

You can imagine if all the customers do the same thing, the impact that this can have on the profitability of your car park”.

After the pandemic, and in the midst of

war in Ukraine

, European ports do not want to be the shock-absorbing buffer on the supply chain once again.

►Also read: China: Covid-19 disrupts maritime transport

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