On August 10, a worker at the Meishan Terminal of China’s Ningbo-Zhoushan Port was tested positive fo rCOVID-19. As a result, port authorities locked up the terminal and suspended its operations indefinitely. Market sources said the Ningbo-Zhoushan Port remained open, and Meishan’s shipments could be diverted to other terminals.
Meishan is among the busiest terminals at the Ningbo-Zhoushan Port, serving main export destinations in Europe and North America. Last year, it handled 5,440,400 TEUs of container throughput, about 20% of the total container throughput at the Port. Ningbo-Zhoushan is the world’s third-busiest container port, with throughput reaching 623 million tons in the first half of the year, according to China’s Ministry of Transport.
The partial shutdown of the Ningbo-Zhoushan Port came as another strain to the global shipping that had already faced soaring rates. Container shipping rates from China to the US hit a record high of more than $20,600 per TEU recently.
Even before the latest closure, congestion had worsened significantly at the ports of Ningbo-Zhoushan and Shanghai since late July due to various factors, including disruptions from typhoon In-Fa. Meshian closure is expected to further prolong global shipping delays ahead of the year-end holiday shopping season. For the China-Europe maritime trade lane, the average delay rose from about 0.5 day in July last year to 2.18 days in July 2021.
Ship-tracking data showed around 40 ships were waiting outside Zhoushan anchorage on August 11, up from 30 on the prior day. Shipping company CMA CGM said it would skip port calls at Ningbo or re-route some vessels to Shanghai. Meanwhile, Hapag-Lloyd expects delays on some planned sailings due to Meishan closure. Diverted ships also caused congestion in Shanghai’s Yangshan port, where about 30 vessels are queuing, the worst in at least three years.
