From Lockdown Disruption to Terminal Congestions, Supply Chain chaos descends across the globe

The supply chain industry doesn’t seem to be catching a break, as disruptions from China to the US are causing growing challenges. Businesses are also still feeling the effects of the Russian Invasion, with continued sanctions and material shortages expected up until 2023. So what’s the current situation in China?

A significant rise in the Omicron variant is currently the worst outbreak since early 2020, this has prompted the authorities to put restrictions into place to contain the variant. Understandably, the measures are for best interest to avoid the chaos of the initial 2020 lockdowns. However, as China is home to roughly ? of manufacturing worldwide, this has brought huge disruptions, adding more pressure to the already struggling industry.

So what’s the current situation in China?

Mass testing is happening across the country, with public transport suspended and businesses halting production or working from home. Consequently, the measures are causing challenges such as lack of workers, delays to truck drivers due to testing, ships waiting hours at ports further increasing container prices and products piling up in warehouses. Some cities such as Shanghai are in lockdowns up until the 1st or 5th of April, but who knows how long this may last…

Terminal congestions across the US causing long delays

Most of the terminals are still experiencing severe delays, which has been the case for some time now. But it’s showing no signs of improvement, as delays are getting longer and importers/exporters are suffering. 

• On the East Coast, NY/NJ vessels are averaging wait times of up to two days, while Savannah can expect delays of 2-4 days and the remainder of the East Coast Ports project delays from four to as long as 16 days.  

• West Coast vessel arrival waiting times range between 26-38 days. Imports into smaller ports such as Seattle and Oakland should expect delays from 3-15 days.

• In the Gulf, Houston wait times are up to 10 days, and can be further compounded by weather events.

Source: wbskinner.com

It’s a knock-on effect from labor shortages to warehouse capacity, everything is contributing towards the chaos. So, what does the rest of 2022 look like? We can’t know for sure, but we can expect the challenges to continue for 2022, so if you’re awaiting products be sure to keep  yourself updated by researching what’s going on, or better still - subscribe to our newsletter and we can keep you updated with what you need to know! At TyTek, we are here to be your point-of-call for all things industrial, so you can be sure to count on us.