A lack of containers
Boxes aren’t always just where you need them – sometimes they are stored for too long, for example in Asia or North America. There are bottlenecks in Europe too, however. A Gothenburg initiative is now turning the tables.
The rates charged by many carriers are once again going through the roof, for the first time in almost a decade. This can be attributed to a mixture of artificial and real lack of shipping space. Even if the trans-Pacific boom has attracted a lot of attention, even companies in Europe that procure goods from Asia are battling bottlenecks as well as rapidly rising freight rates. One phenomenon that has been slightly underestimated so far has been rather striking – an ever-increasing lack of containers in every market.
Boxes booming
Estimates have it that there are approximately 38 million teu circulating worldwide. In earlier times it was reefer units that were sure to be in high demand, but now the low tide has reached ‘normal’ boxes too. There’s a lack of empty containers in Asian ports, for example, because transport volumes from the Far East to the West are currently significantly higher than in the opposite direction.
The call for available containers is loud and clear. There are some remarkable international developments to point out too, however. Even though boxes are urgently required, a research project conducted by the Fraunhofer CML institute and the Hamburg-based firm Container xChange has established that boxes spend an average of 45 days standing around empty in warehouses.
Paradoxically, the average is especially high in regions with particularly low box availability, for example in China and in the USA. The averages there stand at 61 and 66 days, in comparison with a global figure of around 45 days. A high standard deviation of 85 days in North America and 129 days in all of Asia additionally points to many cases in which containers spend even more days in depots than the average leads us to believe. In comparison with the Middle East (average 21 days) and Europe (23 days), it takes an average of 30 days more to integrate containers there back into traffic flows. There is thus plenty of scope for optimisation.
Make better use of existing potential
There are many institutions working to remedy these lacunae. At the beginning of the pandemic in spring, for example, the Swedish port of Gothenburg started a collaboration effort with its railway partners, to offer cost-effective storage options for imported containers in the hinterlands, in order to balance out a temporary imbalance between demand and supply. To ensure that Swedish export customers continue to be supplied with empty containers, the port has introduced special conditions. Partners offer various services, such as inspecting empty boxes, besides storing them too.
Jacob Minnhagen, the manager in charge of developing the project in Gothenburg, told the media that “this is a unique option that we’ve managed to implement rapidly over the past few days. It has met with remarkable resonance from our partners. We’re really very pleased to have been able to act so fast, reliably and collaboratively.” The manager said that no less than a dozen companies are involved in the initiative – which is definitely a good signal.
