After the "Red Sea crisis" broke out, the ports of the western Mediterranean are facing a "congestion crisis" as shipping companies have chosen to divert to the Cape of Good Hope.
According to the Financial Times, container ports in the western Mediterranean are about to become overloaded, which will lead to higher inventory costs and parts shortages for European retailers and manufacturers.
The Moroccan Mediterranean port of Tangier, the Spanish port of Algeciras and the Spanish port of Barcelona have seen a surge in traffic after the Red Sea shipping lanes were caught up in geopolitical threats, local managers said, and they were dealing with overflowing storage yards and berthing vessels.
The Port of Barcelona is the largest seaport in Spain and one of the top ten container ports on the Mediterranean coast.
Maersk recently issued a warning that yard usage at the Port of Barcelona was rising and that the port was handling much higher than normal transshipment volumes. It is understood that container throughput at the Port of Barcelona increased by 17% in February compared with the same month last year. In addition, the ports of Algeciras and Tangier Central Seaport were also affected.
The Mediterranean port of Tangier is located near the Strait of Gibraltar and is a meeting point for major shipping routes connecting Asia, Europe, the Americas and Africa. The port of Algeciras is at the crossroads between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.
Port Algeciras TTI Terminal is the most automated terminal in Spain and an important logistics distribution center for Europe and Africa. The CEO of TTI Algeciras Terminal said the terminal was already saturated and heavy congestion was avoided by limiting the volume of business.
As can be seen from the above chart, after the outbreak of the "Red Sea Crisis", most shipping lines changed their original Asia-Europe route, avoiding the Suez Canal and rerouting to the Cape of Good Hope. As a result, shipping companies need to re-route shipments between Asian and Mediterranean ports. After bypassing South Africa, many ships unload containers at ports such as Algeciras and Tangier on the western side of the Mediterranean, and then use feeder ships to transport the goods to other terminals in southern Europe.
As key ports struggle to cope with the surge in transshipment volumes, the director of maritime consultancy MSI said port congestion and delays could force some companies to build up inventories.
Many terminal operators expect problems to persist as long as routes continue to be diverted.
The chairman of the management committee of Tangier Alliance, the terminal operator at Tangier Mediterranean Port, said the terminal had been operating with almost overloaded yards this year.
Recently, ships have been waiting in the offshore anchorage of Algeciras and Tangier Mediterranean ports, which is a sign of growing congestion. Because these two ports are located on opposite sides of the Strait of Gibraltar, their capacity is limited, forcing shipping companies to go to more distant and inconvenient ports, such as Malta Port and Gioia Tauro Port.
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