Port of Singapore reopens old terminals to cope with congestion
In an effort to ease congestion, Singapore's PSA has reactivated the old berths and storage yards at the abandoned Keppel Terminal, while also adding significant manpower to deal with the backlog of containers. Following these measures, the volume of containers that the Port of Singapore can handle per week has increased from 770,000 TEU to 820,000 TEU.
In addition to the eight existing berths at Tuas Port, three new berths are expected to open this year, and PSA Singapore has plans to accelerate the opening of these new berths to enhance the overall container handling capacity.
According to consultancy Linerlytica, port congestion is once again plaguing the container market, with the Port of Singapore the latest bottleneck. Around 2 million TEU of global capacity is held up outside ports, equivalent to 6.8% of global container ship capacity. Asia has the worst port congestion in the world, with Southeast Asian ports accounting for 26% of the jammed capacity and Northeast Asian ports accounting for 23%. Linerlytica noted that the congestion has forced some shipping companies to cancel planned berthing plans at the Port of Singapore and is expected to exacerbate problems at downstream ports, which will have to handle additional containers.
Singapore Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) report pointed out that the recent surge in Singapore port loading and unloading volume is mainly due to shipping companies because of the Red Sea crisis around the Cape of Good Hope, ship schedule delays, in order to catch up with the next schedule, reduce the port of call, the Southeast Asian countries will be concentrated in Singapore cargo unloading time, and therefore lengthened.
Since the beginning of 2024, the number of vessels arriving in Singapore has increased significantly. In the first four months of this year, the Port of Singapore handled a total of 13.36 million TEU of containers, up 8.8% from the same period last year. Delays and increased container throughput in Singapore have resulted in longer waiting times for container ships to berth.
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Other Asian ports such as Shanghai, Qingdao, Klang and Colombo are also experiencing congestion. Mediterranean Shipping (MSC), the world's largest liner company, has started using ports in India for transshipment operations.
Before the outbreak of the Red Sea crisis, on October 13, 2023, the container Freight index (SCFI) announced by the Shanghai Shipping Exchange was 891.55 points, and on Friday (May 31) it has risen to 3044.77 points, which is 3.42 times the level before the Red Sea crisis.
