Port Congestion and Shipping Delays

Due to recent schedule disruptions caused by weather in Asia, impact from the Australian Port Disruption coupled with a very busy Import Peak Season, Ports across NZ continue to operate under pressure. Vessel berthing windows remain suspended at several ports, with vessels being worked based on arrival date only. With the majority of vessels discharging over weekend periods, this may result in longer availability lead times, plus high demand for VBS during early to middle of each week.

For containers arriving / departing to / from Metro Port via Tauranga, the rail link has also been under pressure due to the increased volume of containers moving, and as a result there has been longer than normal lead times ex Tauranga to Auckland. This week Metroport suspended receival of Export containers to move some of the import backlog. Containers have been prioritized based on “location in the stack” and are being railed on this basis, with Shuttle Select prioritization being unavailable during this time.

Empty depots are also a congestion point, with lengthy waiting times (from 45 minutes up to 2 hours) being experienced by transport operators when on-hiring or de-hiring containers.

As this is Import Peak Season, coupled with the additional events noted above, we would expect these conditions to remain for at least the next 6 to 8 weeks. We are also getting reports from our overseas agents that several shipping lines are suspending import booking to NZ from Asia and Europe. This will cause further delay in shipping. This booking suspension situation is likely to continue for at least a couple of weeks until tranship back logs are cleared in Asia.

Please be mindful of Detention Free time and do your best to ensure containers are devanned & de hire requested as soon as possible to avoid any scope for detention to occur.