Global port congestion to half as a Q1 2023 return to normality is forecast

“50% of congestion has been resolved”, analyst Sea Intelligence has declared to the industry in its most recent early October update.

The proportion of the global boxship fleet unavailable due to port delay has dropped to 7.9% from a peak of 13.8%, the analyst reported.

Although half of 13.8% is 6.9%, the analyst pointed out that there is baseline unavailability of about 2% (as there are always some delays), and at the height of port congestion, about 11.8% of global capacity was due to port delays.

As that additional congestion has fallen to 5.9%, “this essentially means that the congestion issues have been cut in half, compared to the situation in January 2022”.

Plotting a path to future normality, Sea Intelligence noted that the rate of change as the situation worsened, and the rate of change as the situation has eased, are similar. An alternative method is to look at the rate of improvement now when compared to the rate of improvement in earlier periods of port congestion.

With either methodology, the result is the same: normality is forecast to return in March 2023.

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