Container Ships Still Stranded Off West Coast

U.S. businesses that import goods from China are struggling with shortages due to severe damage to supply chains that have yet to recover from COVID-19 even as production in Asia has bounced back, ABC News reports.

The network cited problems that begin in China on factory loading docks; extend to Chinese ports where buying slots aboard ships for U.S.-bound containers has become difficult; reach then to ships stuck off the U.S. West Coast because ports can’t keep up with demand for off-loading; and finally involve U.S. surface transporters such as railways that are unable to haul the volume being asked of them.

ABC News’s report states that deliveries to smaller companies from China can now take months instead of weeks, and information as to when the situation could improve is hard to come by.

According to ABC News, it was once common for only several ships waiting to be unloaded at Southern California ports with a minimal delay. Now, the Marine Exchange of Southern California tells ABC News, there can be as many as 40 ships waiting and the delay for any one can be a week. The largest ships can hold 14,000 containers.

The network quoted Shanton Wilcox, a manufacturing expert at PA Consulting, as having said: “With this type of backlog, it will take several weeks to work through that. It doesn’t go away. And new ships are sailing to the U.S. even as we speak.”

The situation is easier for larger companies, according to ABC News, because they are more likely to have manufacturing options in countries that serve Eastern U.S. ports and also are more likely to be able to afford to fly goods to the U.S. from China.

The cost of shipping goods to the rest of the world from China also has gone up considerably, according to published reports. Sending a container to Europe now costs about $8,000 and to the U.S. about $4,000. A year ago, shipping either container cost about $2,000, according to Fitch Ratings.