After blocking the Suez Canal for nearly a week, the Ever Given — which was carrying more than $3.5 billion in cargo – was finally dislodged; however, the ripple effect on the supply chain is expected to last well into the summer.
Dean Croke, principal analyst at DAT Solutions, said in a recent interview that, during the first three months of this year, 36% of container volume into the Port of New York and New Jersey came from the Suez Canal, along with 22% of volume at the Port of Savannah, Ga.
Port slowdowns caused by the blockages are going to impact truckers for a few weeks, experts predict.
“With that huge influx coming in and those containers coming off — the number of containers that have to be moved out, and then the empties back into the terminals — is like four times what it normally is,” Glenn Jones, global vice president of product strategy at supply chain technology developer Blume Global, said. “Hence, if there was a drayage carrier or a trucking company issue before, it was just accentuated right now. And that’s exactly what has happened.”
Paul Bingham, director of transportation consulting at IHS Markit, says the supply chain — truckers in particular — could be playing catch-up for a while longer.
“The repercussions for the truckers are going to last longer,” he said. “They’re already scheduled out — say, a month — to have that vessel come back to Asia, load again, come back to the U.S. again. Well, that vessel is going to stay late. It’s not going to be able to fully catch up to that quickly. And it may be a period of maybe a few months.”
