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CIL | Nutrien was even slow getting us our generic Roundup Powermax we ordered back in February, so that should tell you something. Granted we are STO's so it was only a partial tote. They did have Keystone NXT and all the other herbicides we ordered from them. The other half we got from a cash and carry outfit like generic prowl, generic callisto, generic valor xlt. I'm not sure if this is China's fault, but I'm guessing the shipping crunch is playing a role.
bloomberg April 4th....
By Brendan Murray (Bloomberg) – Ship congestion outside the biggest U.S. gateway for Asian imports remained elevated with the wait to offload containers lengthening to eight days, adding costs and complications for companies trying to stay well-stocked in an accelerating economy.
A total of 28 container ships were anchored awaiting entry into the neighboring ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, as of Sunday, compared with 26 a week earlier though still below a peak of 40 in early February, according to officials who monitor marine traffic in San Pedro Bay. Another 16 are scheduled to arrive over the next three days, with seven of those expected to drop anchor and join the queue.
The average wait for berth space climbed to 8 days, compared with 7.9 days a week earlier, according to the L.A. port. That’s about triple the average delay in November.
The backlog, which started to form in October, has been tough to clear because of shortages of both equipment and labor needed to handle an unrelenting wave of imports. March is typically one of the slowest months for inbound merchandise, but the influx of steel boxes this year show few signs of easing.
there's also a massive spike in demand for shipping containers which the industry wasn't prepared for....
bloomberg March 16th.....
The world’s biggest makers of shipping containers are scrambling to meet a surge in demand for the metal boxes that shuttle some 90% of the goods around the global economy.
A trade boom in the second half of last year caught the container producers -- mostly Chinese companies -- by surprise as the pandemic threw the existing supply of about 25 million boxes off their normal routes. The manufacturers have been ramping up output ever since, but they’re unable to alleviate shortages that have underpinned soaring freight rates for six months.
The problem resembles those in the car industry, where auto makers cut computer chip orders early in 2020 expecting a slump in sales, only to see household consumption prove resilient. The container tightness and port congestion that’s accompanying it may extend into the second half of 2021, with recoveries in the U.S. and European economies expected to keep demand high for Chinese goods.
“There should be enough boxes to cope with the level of demand in normal conditions,” according to Simon Heaney, senior manager of container research at Drewry Shipping Consultants Ltd. “The problem is that box usage has extended because of all of the delays, meaning its takes longer to release units back to the next customer.”
On The Backfoot
The container manufacturing industry didn’t enter 2020 in a good position, with production and sales in China dropping in 2019, according to a written interview with China International Marine Containers Co., the world’s-largest manufacturer.
There was also a huge surplus of boxes, with the equivalent of more than 3 million empty 20-foot containers at Chinese ports at the end of March last year and 1.2 million in storage at container manufacturers, Li Muyuan, vice president of the China Container Industry Association, said in an interview with Chinese media earlier this year.
That surplus, combined with the expectation that trade would collapse as Covid-19 spread globally, caused a slump in orders to Chinese container manufacturers, which account for more than 90% of the world’s supply. There were almost no new orders for the industry in the first five months of 2020, CIMC said Thursday in their emailed response to questions.
However, the situation reversed around mid-year, as consumers in the U.S. and elsewhere binged on computers and equipment to work at home or decorate their houses, and imports of masks and other pandemic-related goods soared.
Rising exports from China then led to a flood of orders for new containers, in some cases doubling the price to more than $3,000 for a standard 20-foot box. CIMC said it has added 5,000 workers since September last year and even ran some production lines through the Lunar New Year holiday last month.
Output Rises
Production rose to 300,000 20-foot equivalent units in September, then to 440,000 in January, according to Li.
But that’s not been enough to make up for the fact that there aren’t enough used boxes being returned from overseas to China to be refilled and re-exported.
Ocean carriers that own or lease most of the containers in use are aggressively trying to get boxes back to Asia from the U.S., according to Ken Hoexter, a transportation industry analyst at Bank of America in New York. But the current tightness in transportation markets will continue at least through the middle of the year or later, he said in an interview last week.
The shipping industry is trying to play catchup but the combination of extremely low inventories, port congestion in the U.S., increasing consumer demand, the lack of any downtime in China during the curtailed Lunar New Year and now the Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion stimulus package will extend the shortages, he said. | |
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Windfield United out of Chemicals? China's fault? Is this true?
