After the outbreak of the Red Sea crisis, the ports in the western Mediterranean are facing a "congestion crisis" because shipping companies have chosen to change their way to the Cape of Good Hope.
According to the Financial Times, container ports in the western Mediterranean are about to be overloaded, which will lead to rising inventory costs and parts shortages for European retailers and manufacturers.
Local managers said that after the Red Sea Channel was under a geopolitical threat, the transportation volume of the Mediterranean port of Tangier in Morocco, the port of Algesiras in Spain and the port of Barcelona surged, and they were dealing with the problem of full yards and the berthing of ships.
The port of Barcelona is the largest seaport in Spain and one of the top ten container ports on the Mediterranean coast.
Maersk recently issued a warning that the use rate of yards in the port of Barcelona is rising, and the port is dealing with much higher than normal transshipment. It is understood that the container throughput of the Port of Barcelona in February increased by 17% year-on-year. In addition, the docks of Algeciras Port and Tangier Mediterranean Port are also affected.
Tangier Mediterranean Port is located near the Strait of Gibraltar and is the intersection of major routes connecting Asia, Europe, the Americas and Africa. The port of Algeciras is located at the point between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.
The TTI terminal in the port of Algeciras is the most automated terminal in Spain and an important logistics distribution center in Europe and Africa. The CEO of TTI Algeciras Terminal said that the terminal was saturated and severe congestion was avoided by limiting business volume.
As shown in the figure above, after the outbreak of the Red Sea Crisis, most shipping companies changed their original Asia-Europe routes, avoided the Suez Canal, and changed their way to the Cape of Good Hope. Therefore, shipping companies need to re-plan the transportation routes between Asia and Mediterranean ports. After bypassing South Africa, many ships unloaded containers at ports such as Algesiras and Tangier Mediterranean on the west side of the Mediterranean Sea, and then shipped the goods to other docks in southern Europe by side ships.
Because key ports are difficult to cope with the surge in transshipment, the director of MSI, a maritime consulting company, said that congestion and delays in the port may force some companies to increase their inventory.
Many dock operators expect that as long as the route continues to be rerouted, the problem will always exist.
The chairman of the management committee of Tangier Alliance, the terminal operator of Tangier Mediterranean Port, said that the dock has been operating almost overloaded since this year.
Recently, ships have often moored in the offshore anchorages of the port of Algeciras and the Mediterranean port of Tangier, which is exactly a sign of the increasing congestion of the port. Because these two ports are located on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar, their throughput capacity is limited, which forces shipping companies to go to more distant and inconvenient ports, such as the port of Malta and the port of Giatauro.
Source: Souhang Network
