10 Worst Major Ports For Congestion

  2021-03-23-Worst-Ports

Right now what major ocean gateway is the most congested?

If you guessed Long Beach, then you’re right.

Ocean Insights Exclusive Analysis of Port Congestion

According Ocean Insight’s analysis of median port dwell times from January 1 to March 15 of this year, Long Beach in California topped the list of major ports with the most congestion based on its median dwell time of 8.1 days. Dwell time is defined as the period of time from when the cargo arrives in the port to when it leaves the port premises. 

Ocean Insights is number one provider of ocean freight intelligence. The Rostock, Germany-based company was acquired by project44 on March 4. Tracking 350,000 containers daily, Ocean Insights provides track and trace functionality across the vast majority of shipping lines, 700 seaports, and more than 5,000 vessels as well as handling more than five million sailing schedule changes per day.

Ports Continue To Struggle With Container Freight

Since the Covid-19 pandemic began last year, global supply chains have struggled with bottlenecks at key ocean gateways. Harbors fell behind in handling container freight as import volumes surged and port labor was limited due to illness and government regulations.

In particular, Southern California ocean gateways have been in the news lately in regard to congestion so it was no surprise that Ocean Insight’s analysis placed the port of Los Angeles second on the list with a median dwell time of 7.3 days. Manzanillo in Mexico, which also handles Pacific Ocean cargo, came in third place with its dwell time of 5.7 days.

The world’s busiest port, Rotterdam in the Netherlands had a dwell time of 3.5 days. The second busiest port in the world, Hamburg in Germany had a median dwell time of 3.39 days.

By the way, Ocean Sights analysis of 546 ports worldwide found that a few harbors even had dwell times in excess of 14 days.

  Worst Ports Chart 01

Port Intel Service Provide Custom Reports On Port Congestion

For ocean shippers looking for information on their own port situation, Ocean Insights recently launched Port Intel, an online service that provides subscribers with reports that summarize congestion at specific ports. For a limited time, these reports are free.

Users can access the report by visiting the Port Intel site and entering vessel identifiers, bill of lading identifiers or ocean container numbers. Using these details, Port Intel generates customized updates that include projected time out and port dwell times. The reports are curated by project44’s visibility experts.