The Red Sea is one of the world's most important shipping lanes but global trade has been jeopardised after Houthi rebels based in Yemen began attacking ships.
Video / NZ Herald, AP, Getty
Container shipping line Maersk is encouraging New Zealand importers and exporters to plan ahead and consider advancing their orders as the Red Sea security risk impacts Oceania trade through vessel diversions and higher shipping rates.
Supply chain delays are on the cards as the Oceania region enters peakimport season and in the lead-up to “Golden Week”, a week-long national holiday in China when factories will be closed, said Maersk Oceania regional head of market My Therese Blank.
An imbalance of supply and demand had caused freight rates to rise across all markets, though the increases affecting Oceania shipping lagged those of east-west global trade, Blank said.
A spokeswoman for Port of Tauranga, the country’s biggest port and main export gateway, said there were “big problems” with Asia shipping, especially Singapore and Malaysia, and also Shanghai, China.
“In terms of flow-on effects, our biggest issue is ships arriving off window. In the last three months, an average of only 15% of ships have been on time. Thankfully we’ve been able to process them without too much delay at anchor, less than a day in most cases.”
At Auckland’s port, several North Asia and especially Southeast Asia services had experienced delays of up to two days, a spokeswoman said.
“[Shipping] lines are still operating with ‘blanked’ sailings where they are operating networks without the full deployment of vessels due to demands on other trade lanes. Fortunately, so far, the issues have been minimal and we’ve been able to manage our operations around them well,” she said.
Maersk’s Blank said the Red Sea security situation and resulting vessel diversions on the route south of the Cape of Good Hope were affecting global trade, including the New Zealand market.
Red Sea security issues mean some ships are taking the longer route round the Cape of Good Hope near Cape Town, South Africa. Photo / Marlin Clark, Unsplash
“Longer sailing lead time on the east-west network requires additional vessels to maintain weekly schedules to accommodate market capacity and respond to demand spikes,” Blank said.
“Customers importing and exporting cargo between Europe/Africa/Mediterranean and Oceania are impacted.
“Container turnaround time is experiencing delays. The schedule disruption is affecting on-time arrivals in Asia, resulting in ad hoc missed vessel connections and port congestion.
”We encourage importers and exporters to plan ahead and consider advancing orders due to potential supply chain delays, especially as we enter the Oceania import peak season and the Golden Week rush.”
Andrea Fox joined the Herald as a senior business journalist in 2018 and specialises in writing about the $26 billion dairy industry, agribusiness, exporting and the logistics sector and supply chains.
