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Recent incidents and trends in shipping have seen port congestion grow in many major maritime trade regions. Congestion issues have grown, especially in areas such as China, North America, and North Europe ahead of the traditional container peak season. In China, a rise in local COVID-19 outbreaks and poor weather conditions have upped waiting times across major ports in the country ...

This past year has seen significant growth return to the capacity along the transpacific trade lanes. Levels have reached and surpassed capacity figures seen since before the drop during the global COVID-19 pandemic. An unprecedented increase in the demand for goods from Asia to North American consumers has driven the significant rise in need for this transpacific capacity ...

Capacity from Asia to Oceania, the largest trading partner with Oceania, has dipped so far in 2022. The capacity saw a slight decrease in the first two months and another decrease in the following three months as well. As of this latest week in June the capacity has slightly increased to the highest capacity since the end of January 2022 ...

The capacity from Europe and the Mediterranean to North America has slightly decreased after a significant rise during April and May earlier this year. However, the capacity, as of the latest week of June, is still at a greater level than before the beginning of the new year. The above chart, built using BlueWater Reporting’s Capacity Report , shows the changes in capacity along the transatlantic trade routes of North Europe to North America and Mediterranean to North America since the end of December 2021 ...

Along the busiest trade routes on the globe, Asia to Europe and the Mediterranean, Maersk Line and Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) have the greatest presence among all container shipping carriers. The European-based carriers operate jointly under the 2M Alliance for their global shipping services. Their 2M services from Asia to Europe/Med overtake those of any other carrier or alliance’s services in capacity ...

The Panama Canal has seen a great increase in traffic over the past year. Capacity passing through the canal has seen significant growth, even greater than the pre-pandemic figures. According to a report in Bloomberg , the Panama Canal saw a record amount of cargo passing through during this latest fiscal year ...

From the start of 2022, transpacific capacity from Asia has shifted across the different regions along both coasts of the United States. Overall, as seen in the chart published this week on BlueWater Reporting, the capacity from Asia to North America has increased along both coasts. The greater increase was seen from Asia to the East Coast of North America, although the capacity to the West Coast of North America still remains significantly greater in total TEUs ...

Since the beginning of the new year, capacity from Asia to Oceania has slowed down. The two regions largest economies, China and Australia respectively, have seen increased geopolitical tensions which have soured relations, especially regarding trade. According to an article in the Financial Times, trade between the two economies has slowed due to recent COVID-19 outbreaks in China, which has slowed manufacturing and exports from the country, and from political tension as Australia has critiqued China’s geopolitical actions across the East-Asian region ...

As a result of the economic sanctions imposed on Russian public and privately-owned companies and institutions following the country's invasion of Ukraine, Russian entities and their assetshave been prevented from conducting any form of business with much of the world’s economies, most notably the G7 and EU nations . Russian assets among those sanctioned include Russian-based company owned and Russian flagged vessels as well as the country’s largest transportation and logistics company, Far-Eastern Shipping Company (FESCO). Shortly after the sanctions were imposed, FESCO announced they would begin accepting the Chinese yuan as an alternate form of payment to circumvent the restrictions ...