Market update: High occupancy for container terminals in Northern Europe creates bottlenecks as carriers have announced additional fee’s

High yard occupancy at ECT Delta & Euromax Container Terminal in Rotterdam as well as multiple container terminals in the port of Antwerp have reached critical levels according to a multitude of sources. The main driver is the Increasing container dwell times, which is causing operational disturbance. Ocean freight carriers in cooperation with the terminals are implementing a multitude of measures in order to alleviate the disturbance. Implemented measures are already applicable as of 20th of June 2022 and are including, but not limited to the following measures:

1. Evacuation of long-standing import containers to stacking areas, in which all additional costs are directly charged to customers.
2. Rejection of empty containers by road, barge rail
   and feeder.
3. The rejection of full containers by road, barge, rail
   and feeder.
4. Additional storage Fee’s (differentiating per carrier & terminal operator) on top of the storage/DND/YOC.

According to COSCO Shipping Lines Netherlands, reasons for the additional measures are due to the fact that already taken measures have not created the desired effect . Average container dwell times remain extremely high and are not expected to alleviate without additional measures in place.

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