There are currently substantial delays at the transhipment hubs of Singapore and Port Klang (Malaysia) as lines struggle with a variety of issues causing the backlog.
Longer transit times to and from Europe on the east-west trade, scheduling amendments, bunching of vessels and a shortage of empty equipment in key Asian ports has led to a huge build up of containers awaiting global transhipment.
In Singapore alone there are some 20,000+ containers awaiting on-carriage, the storage situation so bad that Singapore Ports has reopened previously closed port areas for extra storage capacity.
On the Australian southbound trade, COSCO Lines and PIL Lines announced last Friday they were not accepting any further bookings from Asia to Fremantle and Adelaide ports until such time as the backlog began to clear. This now leaves only a small number of carriers left to try and service the West Coast trade, all of who are also back-logged with cargo.
The current delays in Asia for cargo to Fremantle and Adelaide is averaging 2-3 weeks at present.