After spending 100 days either stuck or being detained in the Suez Canal, the Ever Given has finally arrived at its destination in Rotterdam, Netherlands, putting an end to a rather lengthy saga.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the giant container ship pulled into the Port of Rotterdam on Thursday 29 July, meaning the containers carrying $700 million worth of goods are making their way to their respective customers, albeit for months late.
Ad Schoenmakers, director of Dutch freight forwarder Ritra Cargo Holland BV, explained: “First, we had lockdowns, then, we had the Ever Given. The problems keep on coming.”
He said that a cargo of women’s summer fashion wear, which was due to be in shops in April, will now have to be sold as a discount or stay in a warehouse until next spring for the 2022 summer season.
After making port in the Netherlands, the Ever Given will continue to the UK, to offload even more delayed products, including $100,000 worth of refrigerators, bicycles and much more.
However, this isn’t the end of the shipping industry’s problems, and while port congestion has been easing, the shipping container shortage is worsening. Exporters are reporting having to wait for weeks to find containers for their cargo and then finding that container prices have doubled.
Part of the problem isn’t a lack of containers, as hundreds of thousands are stacked up in ports around the world, but pandemic restrictions mean containers haven’t been able to be loaded up with new products to send back to Asia, leaving them to pile up.
Acerbating the issues is that with some ships now so far behind schedule, containers are being left behind to save time, and the shortage is leading to incentives for ships to carry empty containers back to Asia.
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