Shipex

CONGESTION PROBLEMS AT ‘ANTWERP GATEWAY’ - PORT OF ANTWERP

One of the biggest terminals in the Port of Antwerp, called ‘Antwerp Gateway’ and operated by DP World, is struggling with serious congestion and waiting times.

Also a lot of other European ports are impacted by the disruption of the international maritime supply chain. For example the Eurogate terminal at the port of Hamburg earlier announced that they had to limit the acceptance of export containers to 72 hours prior to the arrival of a vessel, which reduces seriously the flexibility for shippers and their logistic partners.

The problems at Antwerp Gateway cause serious delays for trucking companies who have to pick up empty containers and bring back full containers. Several trucking companies have therefore announced a surcharge of 75 to 100 euro per container as they indicate that the situation deteriorated during the last weeks.

Terminal operator DP World is explaining the situation as follows :
• “A lot of vessels are not sailing within the foreseen ‘window’ and as a result the extreme delays result in the terminal surpassing its limits in terms of capacity.
• Due to the Brexit and COVID 19 container vessels are fully booked, some services are shipping double (!) the volumes committed in our contracts with shipping lines.”
Moreover, today operations at most port terminals are on hold due to the bad weather conditions (heavy wind/storm).

For more detailed information on your shipments, please contact us.

Shipex Team

 

port of antwerp