Using the fourth quarter of 2021 as a baseline, Sea-Intelligence modelled the cumulative change to the number of vessels arriving at the port complex, assuming a transit time from Asia of 2.5 weeks.
In a forecast out to May 9, 2022, the company’s Trade Capacity Outlook database showed that compared to the fourth quarter baseline, 60 fewer vessels would arrive in the first week of March. That forecast predicted a 60-vessel queue, the current queue is 66 vessels.
“What is more worrying, is that the data would therefore also imply that if there are no other changes, then the queue will be 25 vessels larger than the baseline by the end of May 2022. The baseline, in keeping with the queue growth in 2021-Q4, would imply a queue of 145 vessels. Adding the additional 25 would bring the queue to 170 vessels,” said Alan Murphy, CEO, Sea-Intelligence.
Vessel supply limitations mean that such a large queue is extremely unlikely to happen, said Murphy, instead lines will once again increase blank sailings to account for tonnage tied up in queues.
“What we saw during January appeared to be a kind of steady-state balance, between the desire to operate the required vessels and the need to blank sailings due to the vessels being unavailable. Hence, more realistically, we might simply be back to the 100-105 vessels in the queue, by the time we get to April,” said Murphy.
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