Financial Associated Press (Shanghai, editor Xiaoxiang) news, at present, there are only less than three weeks left before the arrival of Christmas in the West. However, many American Christmas gifts may still be "floating" on the sea today...
On Friday, within 40 miles of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, two large ports in Southern California, 40 container ships were waiting for berths. At first glance, that number is half as much as the more than 80 ships in mid-November, and container congestion appears to have eased.
But this is far from the case. In fact, that's just because the Southern California Ocean Exchange recently changed new queuing rules to encourage container ships to wait outside a specially designated Safety and Air Quality Zone (SAQA) that will extend 150 miles west of the port and 50 miles north and south. This significantly reduces the number of vessels close to coastal ports.
But according to the southern California Ocean Exchange's new calculation method, 56 container ships were waiting farther away (40 miles away) on Friday, meaning that the number of container ships actually waiting for berths outside the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach has reached an all-time high — 96.
In addition, there are now 31 container ships docked at the dock, bringing the total number of container ships waiting to be loaded and unloaded to near an all-time high of 127, an increase of 25% from the beginning of November, an increase of 41% from the beginning of October and an increase of 79% from the beginning of September.
It is reported that the new queuing system of the Southern California Ocean Exchange is only designed to improve safety and air quality, not to effectively reduce the waiting time of container ships. By spacing ships apart and reducing harmful emissions, the safety of winter ports can be improved.
The new queuing system reserves a queue for ships based on the vessel's calculated time of arrival (CTA), unlike the previous first-come,100 system, which puts the vessel in the queue when it arrives within 20 miles of the port.
According to calculations by the Pacific Maritime Monitoring System, the CTA is extrapolated based on the assumed time of arrival of the ship from the last port of call. The ship could then wait anywhere outside of SAQA — even on the other side of the Pacific Ocean , knowing it would be able to hold a queuing position under the CTA.
At present, although the Biden administration in the United States has racked its brains to control maritime congestion, it has been ineffective.
According to Wabtec Port Optimizer in Los Angeles, the average waiting time for ships in the Port of Los Angeles was as high as 20.8 days as of Friday, nearly a week longer than a month ago, and Biden's plan to save Christmas appears to be facing setbacks.