The congestion of Shanghai’s Yangshan port continues and port operators have rescheduled more port calls to other port terminals in Shanghai in order to ease pressure at the world’s largest boxport.
In a notice, Shanghai International Port Group (SIPG) said it has rescheduled a number of port calls in April and May from its Guandong container terminal and Shengdong container terminal at Yangshan Port to its Hudong terminal, Pudong terminal and Waigaoqiao terminals.
SIPG has attributed the congestion to “imbalanced business volumes from major container shipping routes following the regroup of major shipping alliances”.
An official at a local freight forwarder in Shanghai told Splash that one of the main reasons for the congestion at Yangshan Port is the overbooking by shipping lines, which has led to a huge amount of containers overstaying at the port.
When contacted by Splash, an official at SIPG confirmed the container overstay issue at the port. He said the issue has lowered the operational efficiency of the port and the recent bad weather has aggravated the situation.
“We can confirm that some of our vessels have been impacted by the congestion at the Yangshan Port due to seasonal bad weather. We are closely working with Chinese ports to address any operational challenges, and we have been able to maintain a very constructive dialogue with our terminal partners,” commented Bonnie Huang, Maersk’s spokesperson in China.
