Urgent Shipping Update: China Disruption

We want to share an important update on current shipping conditions in China, particularly across North China, which are now starting to significantly impact equipment availability, vessel schedules, and overall transit reliability across all carriers.

What’s Happening?

Ongoing geopolitical tensions in the Middle East – particularly disruption in the Strait of Hormuz are placing increasing strain on the global container shipping network.

Recent incidents involving commercial vessels, including ships operated or chartered by MSC (Mediterranean Shipping Company), have seen vessels fired upon and seized while transiting the region. As a result, vessel movements through this key trade corridor have been reduced, with widespread knock-on effects across global shipping networks.

The Global Impact

Due to these disruptions:

A significant number of vessels have been delayed, rerouted, or are currently anchored outside the Gulf region
Hundreds of vessels are effectively stranded or diverted
Global fleet positioning has become increasingly imbalanced

This is now creating disruption across major trade lanes – including those serving the UK and Europe.

What this Means for China Exports

We are now seeing direct impact at origin, particularly in North China ports such as Dalian and Qingdao:

Shortage of empty containers due to delayed repositioning
Reduced vessel availability and increased blank sailings throughout May
Less frequent departures and reduced capacity

Carriers are actively using blank sailings to rebalance their networks, but this is further tightening available space.

Transit Times Becoming Less Reliable

Across all carriers, schedule reliability is now deteriorating. Transit times are becoming increasingly unpredictable due to:

Vessel rerouting and congestion at transhipment hubs
Delays in vessels returning to Asia
Ongoing security-related routing changes
Port congestion caused by disrupted schedules

It’s important to highlight that published carrier schedules (ETDs and transit times) are currently highly volatile and subject to change at very short notice.