DISCHARGING masses of cargo from mega ships causes major congestion ashore, but even more time his lost unloading a half-sized ship with the same amount of cargo, says Sea-Intelligence.
'Simply put, it takes more time to handle two 5,000-TEU vessels than it does to handle one 10,000-TEU vessel in a congested environment, as a minimum due to the extra time going to and from berth,' said the consultancy's Sunday Spotlight bulletin.
'The consequence of this is that the ports have to handle a much larger number of vessels than they were used to before the pandemic, in turn worsening the bottleneck problems.
'One of the ripple effects of the pandemic has been a sharp increase in the number of extra vessels per week. This trend had manifested itself on the transpacific already in 2020, and then also came to Asia-Europe in 2021 and has escalated very sharply in the 2021 peak season,' said the bulletin.
This problem is acute on Asia-North America west coast because of the extra vessels on the trade. On Asia-North Europe, very few such extra vessels are deployed. The initial impact of the pandemic was also very small, starting to increase in 2021 and worsened due to the Suez Canal blockage, said the bulletin.
'The pattern seen on Asia-Mediterranean was not different from that on Asia-North Europe, with a limited impact of the pandemic in 2020, but a sharp increase in 2021 starting before the Suez Canal blockage,' it said.
SeaNews Turkey
'Simply put, it takes more time to handle two 5,000-TEU vessels than it does to handle one 10,000-TEU vessel in a congested environment, as a minimum due to the extra time going to and from berth,' said the consultancy's Sunday Spotlight bulletin.
'The consequence of this is that the ports have to handle a much larger number of vessels than they were used to before the pandemic, in turn worsening the bottleneck problems.
'One of the ripple effects of the pandemic has been a sharp increase in the number of extra vessels per week. This trend had manifested itself on the transpacific already in 2020, and then also came to Asia-Europe in 2021 and has escalated very sharply in the 2021 peak season,' said the bulletin.
This problem is acute on Asia-North America west coast because of the extra vessels on the trade. On Asia-North Europe, very few such extra vessels are deployed. The initial impact of the pandemic was also very small, starting to increase in 2021 and worsened due to the Suez Canal blockage, said the bulletin.
'The pattern seen on Asia-Mediterranean was not different from that on Asia-North Europe, with a limited impact of the pandemic in 2020, but a sharp increase in 2021 starting before the Suez Canal blockage,' it said.
SeaNews Turkey
