In mid-November, there appeared to be a remarkable drop in the number of ships in the logjam at the busiest container ports in the US. On November 16, there were 86 ships waiting in San Pedro Bay. One week later, there were just 60, which constitutes a 30% drop. Of course, before the supply chain crisis, there were few, if any, ships anchored off shore.
President Biden had recently announced government intervention that would allow the Port of LA to run for 24 hours, and the ports had instituted a fine to discourage containers lingering on the docks. This seemed to many, including the executive director of the Port of Long Beach, a sign that what they were doing to fix the supply chain is working.
The supply chain crisis may not yet be fixed, but on December 5, the Marine Exchange of Southern California decided to update its counting methodology to include ships outside the 40-mile zone. And just as quickly as it arrived, the “improvement” in port congestion vanished.
Source: qz.com
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