🌟 [ 84 ]   End of Suez Canal Snarl Marks Beginning of New Stress on Global Trade [ @Bloomberg Quicktake: Now ]

Now removed from the Suez Canal’s main channel, the Ever Given leaves in its wake several weeks or months of disruptions across a world economy where the pandemic revealed both the sturdy backbone of global trade and an Achilles’ heel. “It’s not a cork-out-of-a-bottle moment,” said Peter Aylott, director of policy at the U.K. Chamber of Shipping. “We could still be days away from the canal being completely free.” The reopening kicks off a new wave of stress on supply chains the intertwined network of ships, ports, trucks, trains and warehouses that shuttle products from a factory on one side of the planet to a retail shelf or production line on the other. A surge in e-commerce means even greater consumer demand for speed, putting added strain on transportation and boosting freight rates to record highs. Even a temporary clog in a major artery like the Suez is problematic because the world’s nearly 6,000 container ships run on schedules, with a finite number of steel boxes to go around. They can’t be repositioned to where demand pops up or quickly shifted away from regions where economic activity is slow. Capacity can be tweaked by adjusting the speed of vessels but also with a blunter tool: canceling sailings that aren’t possible anymore or aren’t economically viable. The Suez incident may unleash plenty of those. That leaves the owners of cargo and all the logistics industries handling imports and exports at the mercy of the container carriers. “The metaphorical dominoes have already been toppled,” said Lars Jensen of SeaIntelligence Consulting. “We will continue to see the unfolding of congestion issues in Europe as the cargo arrives, blank sailings resulting from the severe delay of many vessels, as well as a deterioration of the equipment situation.” In the near term, ports from Europe to Asia are bracing to be inundated with goods held up near Egypt for almost a week. The Port of Rotterdam, Europe’s largest seapor .

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🌈 🔎 EndofSuezCanalSnarlMarksBeginningofNewStressonGlobalTrade 🌈