Report on shipping container issues
Report published by Actionable Intelligence magazine
- When pandemic started, global sea trade dropped by 9% in 2/2020, an another 12% in 4/2020
- Up to 90% of global trade volume moves by sea in containers on ships
o Hauling up to 190,000 tons at a time
o 80% of containers are made in China
o Global freight index has risen from $1459 per container to $5165
- Air freight costs went from $4 per kilogram to as high as $18 per kilogram
- Non-store retail ec-ommerce transactions jumped 40% during lockdowns, causing increase in need for shipping consumer products in containers on ships
- Auto sales jumped 29%
- Home furniture sales went up 20.4%
- Containers that carried millions of masks to countries in Africa and South America at beginning of pandemic remain there, empty and uncollected
o Same occurred in Australia and New Zealand
- Bloomberg estimates that 3,000 containers fell off ships into the ocean in 2020, and another 1,000 so far this year
- Due to lockdowns, at the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, CA, ships drift for days in so-called “drift boxes” zones as they wait for workers to unload ships