Carriers are «dumping cargo anywhere» to address Middle East conflict

Multiple forwarders have told The Loadstar they are seeing their boxes “dumped anywhere” as container lines look to deal with the fallout of the latest conflict in the Middle East. One forwarder said: “Carriers are literally pulling into any port and offloading cargo, with it left up to us to work out how to get the cargo to its final destination. This is resulting in loads of additional costs being dumped on us too.

The Loadstar has been made aware of instances of boxes bound for Dubai having been left at Qingdao Port in China – at the start of the vessel’s journey; carriers including Maersk and MSC having been highlighted for the practice.

An end-of-voyage advisory – which kickstarts the process of carriers searching for a safe port – sent out by MSC, seen by The Loadstar, informed customers that they would be charged $800 ‘per box unloaded’, with further charges applied for storage.

One European forwarder told The Loadstar Oman was increasingly becoming a staging post for their shipments into the other Gulf countries, and there was growing chaos at warehouses across the world that were filling up with Gulf-bound shipments.

Source: theloadstar.com