Will ships have to wait out potential US port strike?

Date Added: 25 September 2024

Container cargoes currently bound for the US East Coast could be stuck at sea for the duration of the dockworker strike expected to start next week due to a lack of alternative destinations to offload, according to a report on the Seatrade Maritime website.

Those thoughts, spoken by Jeremy Nixon, CEO of Ocean Network Express (ONE), on the sidelines of Marine Money Asia in Singapore, were of interest to Davies Turner as we monitor the situation and advise customers that use our portfolio of international ocean freight operations to and from the US East and Gulf coasts, which include LCL and FCL import and export operations.

Employers at US East Coast ports represented by the United States Maritime Exchange (USMX), those representing the International Longshoremen Association (ILA) remain at impasse over a new six-year labour contract to replace the existing one which expires on 30 September. The ILA has pledged that the 85,000 dockworkers it represents will strike coast wide from 1 October if there is no new agreement, an event shipping lines and cargo owners have been gearing up for.

Seatrade Maritime reported Nixon as saying that the great majority of ONE’s customers had brought forward shipments to minimise risk, while a small number have diverted cargo to move via West Coast ports.

However, in the event of a strike from 1 October shipping lines will not be able to divert vessels bound for the US East Coast to West Coast ports as the ILA has made clear it would picket such a move. That would mean that vessels on route to the East Coast will have to sit and wait until that industrial disruption is resolved.

In a customer update on 20 September Maersk said it expected “vessels enroute to ILA-impacted ports to anchor temporarily”, although did not say for how long.

We know that Mexican ports are running at very high utilisation levels, as are the Canadian ports right now, so the option of diverting ships to Mexican or Canadian ports on the East Coast appears difficult.

Davies Turner remains committed to helping clients manage the difficult situations facing container shipping at present and mitigate where possible additional costs incurred. Our ocean freight team will endeavour to keep in close contact with all clients to provide updates on specific movements.

For more information about our ocean freight forwarding and logistics services, please contact ocean@daviesturner.co.uk or visit the relevant pages of this website.