Several major ports in the US have become overrun with containers and anchored containerships amid disruption caused by Covid-19 and high consumer demand.
As of Thursday, 73 containerships waited at anchorage in California's San Pedro Bay for berths at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
Meanwhile, the Port of Savannah had 28 ships waiting for slots to offload boxes, according to port data.
Anchorage statistics at the ports of Seattle and Charleston were not immediately available, but disclosed container volumes indicated that their facilities were extremely busy.
At the Port of Seattle, this year's container volume has already reached 2.8m teu to the end of September, surpassing last year's total of 2.4m teu.
Meanwhile, volumes at the Port of Charleston have totalled just over 2m teu for the same period, putting it on pace to overtake last year's volume of 2.31m teu by more than 380,000 teu.
The waiting game
"Everything is full," Maersk spokesman Thomas Boyd told TradeWinds.
"Every port has some waiting times. It's just the way it is with these extraordinary volumes."
He said Maersk has as many as seven containerships waiting about seven days in San Pedro Bay at any given time. The average waiting time at Port of Chareleston is eight days.
"It's not like there's an easy solution," he said.
Maersk has considered a highly publicised offer from Florida's Port of Jacksonville to accept containerships that are waiting at congested ports, but doing that would lead to other challenges, Boyd said.
"It's not a viable option to bring US West Coast cargo to Jacksonville and then rail it back to Los Angeles," he said.
"We're continuing to explore all our options on ports of call in the US and Canada to alleviate supply chain pressures."
The ports of Savannah and Charleston are also out of the question because they are also beyond capacity, he said.
German liner operator Hapag-Lloyd does not expect to take the Port of Jacksonville up on its offer either since it only has two ships at anchor in San Pedro Bay.
"For us it currently does not make sense," spokesman Nils Haupt told TradeWinds.
"Time and canal fees would be an issue."
Maersk has removed the backlogged Port of Seattle from its Alaska-China service and added that stop to a route that sails between the Pacific Northwest and China.
Mediterranean Shipping Company has suspended the Seattle service on its Eagle route serviced by the 5,610-teu Akinada Bridge (built 2001) until further notice.
"We apologise for any disruption to your cargo shipments," the Swiss liner operator said in a statement.
"MSC continues to monitor and implement necessary measures to minimise disruptions in a globally challenging market."
