US Federal Maritime Commission member Carl Bentzel said on August 9th that carriers should not “receive involuntarily subsidized storage for empty containers that belong to them” that are stored by shippers and truckers “without proper compensation.”
He made the statement after FMC Chairman Daniel Maffei visited the Port of New York and New Jersey. Bentzel said that, in his view, “the congestion emanates from the lack of accountability in moving the build-up of empty containers back into the terminals”.
He said that “empty containers, and perhaps even export containers, are being rejected for return or delivery, because of the surging levels of imports that need to be handled. The industry needs to come together to plan how to better respond to the current challenges of returning empties to the port.”
Shippers and lorry companies at the US gateway ports have said that they were experiencing problems with unreturnable empty shipping containers since the start of the late-pandemic cargo boom. They claimed that the problem was becoming worse on the US East Coast.
Maffei has reported that his office was receiving complaints from the Port of New York and New Jersey that sound much like those heard previously in the gateway ports on the Pacific coast. Ocean carriers were alleged to be refusing to accept box returns at the terminal, forcing truckers to store unwanted empty containers at their own expense and then pay Detention and Demurrage fees for the privilege. Firms have claimed that truckers who file
complaints or refuse to pay the D&D charges risked getting cut off from further shipments.
Bentzel said that “I understand that the problem is spreading to other east coast ports such as Baltimore, which reported to me last week that they too have an overflow of empty containers, hindering terminal operations and port fluidity. In the face of continuing surges of import cargo to the east coast, how the carriers and marine terminals manage their equipment must change,” he said on August 9th, adding that “I believe that on certain east coast ports that we need public comment to assess how carriers and their marine terminal operators manage their containers to determine whether it is now reaching an emergency level.”
Container xChange has observed that “as markets reopen and demand softens, the oversupply is a natural outcome of demand-supply forces balancing at new levels”
Christian Roeloffs, Container xChange CEO, wrote in a recent advisory that “the oversupply situation does not come as a surprise because the average container prices and leasing rates have been declining globally since September-October 2021.”
While recovering empties appears to be a priority still for carriers at the Port of Long Beach, where an increase in the number of outbound empty boxes boosted the port’s volume to a new record for the month of July, on the other side of the US, at the Port of New York & New Jersey, the port has been compelled to introduce a “container imbalance fee” to
incentivize carriers to remove their unwanted empty boxes from the pier. From September
1st container export levels (including empties) must be at least 110% of import levels, or the port will fine the carrier $100 per container.
“We emphatically encourage ocean carriers to step up their efforts to evacuate empty containers quicker and at higher volumes to free up much needed capacity for arriving imports in order to keep commerce moving through the port and the region,” said Bethann Rooney, the director for ports at NY and NJ.
Bentzel observed that a year ago he had sent letters to each of the ocean shipping alliances participating on the Council on Port Performance, asking them to coordinate policies with their marine terminal partners to better coordinate delivery of their equipment.
