Cancelled Chinese Sailings / Blanked Voyages Hinder American Exports

The Port of Long Beach and Port of Savannah are losing exports due to an increase in blanked, or canceled, Asian sailings to the US. Export containers at the Port of Long Beach are waiting longer due to a drop in Asian Transpacific vessels.

According to Joshua Brazil, Project44 vice president of supply chain insights, exports from “gate-in to loaded on a ship” took 18.33 days at the Port of Long Beach as of November 10.
“We are forecasting 28 blank sailings for Q4, which represents approximately 15% of our quarterly vessel capacity,” said Mario Cordero, Port of Long Beach executive director. . We favor exports above empties, which is why terminal empties are rising.”

Cordero said the port expects loaded imports to decline throughout the year. Ocean carriers are canceling more sailings to stem the decline in ocean orders and stabilize ocean freight pricing. HLS told clients, “More and more carriers have agreed on the plan to “take away capacity to match demand”, although no one wants to be the first to terminate a service, which potentially loses market share.”

HLS warned of more “severe” capacity reductions from THE Alliance (the ocean alliance of Hapag-Lloyd, Yang Ming, and ONE), noting that 2M Alliance (Maersk Line and MSC) has suspended one-third of its West Coast services. Expect more blank sailing and service interruption to the U.S. East Coast. “Blank sailings have increased substantially on the Transpacific, but not so much on Asia-Europe,” said Sea-Intelligence CEO Alan Murphy.

For weeks 51 and 52, carriers have scheduled no blank sailings on the Asia-North America West Coast route, which Murphy believes reflects their hesitation over how to handle the potential pre-Chinese New Year demand.“It appears more to be a wait-and-see approach,” he continued.

“The blank sailings represent the market downturn and the reaction by ocean carriers to combine or cancel voyages to adapt for changing market conditions,” Cordero said. “Following a record run that lifted us to record years, we projected this earlier this year…. Things are beginning to slow off,” he said. The Port of Long Beach is ready to manage container volume expansion, he noted.

The port’s container traffic are 1.5% higher than in January–October 2022. Loaded imports remain stable. Monthly laden imports dropped in June from 436,977 TEUs in May. Cordero reported 658,428 TEUs moved by dockworkers and terminal operators in October on Thursday. Empty containers dropped 13.4% to 244,743 TEUs.

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Cordero said fewer vessels had allowed port stakeholders to clear the nine-plus-day import container backlog. Since October 2021, 4% of containers have become long-dwelling. However, rail containers still take nine days to depart the port, down from 14 two weeks earlier. Due to poor ocean chassis availability at the Oakland and East Coast rail ramps, especially to smaller interior markets, the railways are growing problems.

As chassis providers shift chassis from an oversaturated LA/LB market, Oakland chassis should stabilize during November. Oakland’s slowdowns and interruptions have increased trade at East and Gulf Coast ports.” As vessels wait off ports, trade to the East Coast and Gulf continues.

MarineTraffic reports that the Port of Savannah has the most ships waiting off port limits at 30, taking an average 5.7 days to enter. July saw over 40 vessels off the port. Georgia Ports Authority (GPA) executive director Griff Lynch reported market correction signals in September.  “While port congestion in Savannah remains severe, starting November 7 we are seeing a decline in the number of vessels served,” said MarineTraffic supply chain in-transit visibility lead Alex Charvalias.

Export containers average 6.82 days, down from 8.34 in the second week of October and 7.35 on November 1. To make room for arriving containers, the Port of Houston in the Gulf will start charging long-dwell containers next month. West Coast trade diversion benefits the port. MarineTraffic provided a LinkedIn chart of vessels waiting off Houston. This week, 14 vessels averaged 6.3 days waiting.

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