| Dear Valued Customer,
The Suez Canal passage continues to be blocked in both directions. Whilst efforts continue to dislodge the container ship operated by Evergreen Marine, numbers show that over 300 ships are now waiting at anchorage to pass through the canal. Currently Maersk and partners have three vessels stuck in the canal and 27 vessels waiting to enter the canal, with two more expected to reach the blockage today. We have until now redirected 15 vessels around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa. Watch this video with the head of our global execution centre where he talks about some of the factors that play into these mitigation decisions.
To keep up to date with the latest updates and planned schedule for Maersk and partner vessels for the next two weeks, please click on Find Out More.
Please note that you can use our interactive map functionality to track any Maersk vessel in real time and gain access to AI-powered predictive analysis and estimated times of arrival (ETA) via our Hub. Click here to login.
For every day the canal remains blocked, the ripple effects on global capacity and equipment continues to increase and the blockage triggers a series of further disruptions and backlogs in global shipping that could take months to unravel, even after the canal is reopened. Redirecting vessels also mean that these vessels will be missing somewhere else during that time, leading to further shortage in the market.
We see it as our utmost priority to mitigate this where we can and have in certain areas already started to proactively manage our capacity will not be accepting cargo where we cannot ensure space. Our partners are also looking into the impacts on flows in our hubs and key terminals, trying to avoid flooding of cargo if it can't be loaded onboard a vessel.
For the immediate term we also anticipate higher short-term (or spot) rates, with vessels being delayed this week and missing in the system. However long-term it will not continue as volumes will go down. At the current time we do not expect this to change the overall prospects for the year towards a normalisation.
Throughout this process we aim to give as much clarity and notice as possible. We are all in this situation together and everyone needs to collaborate towards mitigating the situation, for instance working to return equipment faster.
While out of our control, we apologize for the inconvenience this incident may cause to your business in a time where certain industries are already stretched due to the pandemic. Businesses reliant on just in time supply chains risk having to reproduce or resort to flying in essential components and for critical shipments we recommend that you reach out to your local sales representative for dialogues and quotations on alternative solutions for urgent cargo that is still at origin or elsewhere.
Please don't hesitate to contact your local Maersk representative should you have any further questions. Recognising the weekend and working hours, please visit our FAQ aiming to answer your most immediate questions by clicking on Find Out More.
Sincerely,
A. P. Moller – Maersk |