The congestion story inverted this month. Chinese load ports have cleared: in the week to 20 October the seven day average vessel wait was 2.14 days at Shanghai, 1.95 at Ningbo and 1.15 at Shekou, according to Kuehne+Nagel port updates. What replaced that queue sits at the other end of the voyage. On the Gulf of Oman, Khor Fakkan waited a median of 9.4 days and Fujairah 7.79 days in the week to 17 October, up 34 percent and 163 percent respectively, with roughly 217 vessels at anchor across the two anchorages on 18 October, the highest count of the reporting period. Durban averaged 7.33 days and Beira reached 13. Meanwhile Chittagong, the worst queue on the network through September, now clears the anchorage in 0.14 days and holds vessels at berth for 70 hours. Freight has stopped being an origin problem. It is a gateway problem, and gateway problems are priced in days rather than dollars.
| Benchmark | Latest reading | Change | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drewry WCI composite, 15 Oct | USD 4,485 per 40ft | +3 percent | Drewry |
| Shanghai to Rotterdam | USD 3,522 per 40ft | +6 percent | Drewry |
| Shanghai to Genoa | USD 3,945 per 40ft | +7 percent | Drewry |
| Shanghai to Los Angeles | USD 7,884 per 40ft | +3 percent | Drewry |
| Shanghai to New York | USD 10,075 per 40ft | -1 percent | Drewry |
| Asia to Europe FAK filed for 19 Oct | USD 4,500 to 4,800 per 40ft | landing uncertain | Drewry |
| Blank sailings, weeks 43 to 47 | 44 of 713 voyages | 6 percent | Drewry |
| Global container liftings, August | 17.46 million TEU | +3.7 percent year on year | Container Trades Statistics |
| Fleet capacity tied up by congestion | about 12 percent | four year high | C.H. Robinson |
| Khor Fakkan median wait | 9.4 days | +34 percent | Portcast |
| Fujairah median wait | 7.79 days | +163 percent | Portcast |
| Chittagong median wait | 0.14 days | -40 percent | Portcast |
Container Trades Statistics reports that global liftings reached 17.46 million TEU in August, the highest monthly volume on record, up 3.7 percent year on year, 7.2 percent on August 2024 and 12.9 percent on August 2023. Year to date growth holds above 5 percent. The same dataset puts the global freight rate index at 117 points, 2 points above July, 44 percent above a year earlier and roughly 50 percent higher since January, the strongest reading since July 2024. Far East exports are up 8 percent year to date, an addition of 6.3 million TEU.
The two regions moving the other way are the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East, where imports are down 5 percent and exports down 10 percent, about 1 million TEU lost. Demand is therefore not the reason cargo into the Gulf is expensive. Routing is.
C.H. Robinson puts about 12 percent of global container ship capacity as tied up by port congestion in its October Edge report, the highest share in four years. That is the number that reconciles record cargo with restricted effective capacity. A fleet that looks adequate on paper is not adequate when an eighth of it is waiting at anchor.
Drewry counted 44 blank sailings across weeks 43 to 47, equal to 6 percent of 713 scheduled voyages, with 94 percent of services expected to operate. The split is 44 percent Asia to Europe and the Mediterranean, 36 percent trans-Pacific eastbound and 20 percent transatlantic. On the Asia to Europe lane blank sailings fall to two next week from six. Fewer blanks plus returning Suez transits is exactly the combination that makes a USD 4,500 to 4,800 per 40ft FAK round hard to hold, which is why Drewry expects flat rather than rising rates in the near term.
| Gateway | Median vessel wait | Direction | Operational note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Khor Fakkan, UAE | 9.4 days | up from 7.0 | about 217 ships at anchor with Fujairah |
| Fujairah, UAE | 7.79 days | up from 2.96 | holding shifting to the Gulf of Oman side |
| Beira, Mozambique | 13.0 days | critical | terminal recovery ongoing, weather risk |
| Conakry, Guinea | 12.2 days | severe | one vessel per line, first come first served |
| Durban, South Africa | 7.33 days | severe | Pier 1 up to 14 days, DGT up to 25 days |
| Pointe Noire, Congo | 4.89 days | yard at 95 percent | fixed window and FIFO berthing suspended |
| Tema, Ghana | 5.87 days | persistent | high yard use, trucking short |
| Chittagong, Bangladesh | 0.14 to 1.07 days | improving | 70 hours at berth, yard 75 to 80 percent |
| Haifa, Israel | 0.08 days | low | clean berth, war risk is the variable |
| Shanghai, China | 2.14 days | improving | post-holiday normalisation |
Sources: Portcast weekly snapshot 11 to 17 October, Kuehne+Nagel port updates 14 to 20 October, Zencargo market update 20 October.
Chinese load ports are back to normal and the eastern Mediterranean is empty. Everything between them, and everything south of the Sahara, is not.
The UAE east coast is now the most expensive place in the network to wait. JMIC Update 106 counted about 217 vessels at anchor in the Fujairah and Khor Fakkan area as at 18 October, 21 percent higher over 72 hours, with Fujairah alone rising from 126 to 159 hulls. Khor Fakkan handles about 1.8 port calls a day against 1.0 before the crisis, and weekly throughput has climbed from 8,000 TEU to 65,000 TEU. Jebel Ali is running at about 18 percent of normal port calls.
The cause is structural. Hormuz is moving roughly 3.5 transits a day against a pre-crisis norm of 85, and only ten container ship transits were recorded in the whole of September. Every box bound for Dubai, Dammam or Kuwait lands outside the strait and moves by truck. The Gemini AGX and FM1 loops restarted on 17 October with Khor Fakkan replacing Jebel Ali, which adds scheduled capacity and adds to the same two anchorages.
Security has not improved in parallel. JMIC raised the Arabian Gulf from moderate to substantial after two confirmed tanker attacks off Al Jubail on 16 October, and the 18 October attack on a tug 20 nautical miles northeast of Khor Fakkan shows the Gulf of Oman side is exposed too. The 2,824 TEU GFS Pride sank on 14 October. A nine day wait at anchor, AIS on and stationary, is a commercial delay and a security exposure at the same time.
Bangladesh is the counter example. Portcast puts the median wait at 0.14 days, down 40 percent, and Zencargo reports 1.07 days with space and equipment stable. Yard density sits between 75 and 80 percent, above the 60 percent comfort threshold but no longer the 90 percent that forces a stop order. Most telling, FAK rates out of Chittagong have trended slightly down across most major carriers, the only origin in the region where that is true.
The remaining constraint is time at berth. Twenty one of 31 vessels arriving in the seven days to 20 October stayed more than 48 hours, and the median stay was 70 hours. Productivity is improving: on 18 October RSGT Bangladesh handled the MV AMOUREUX at 122 TEU per hour, or 72 moves per hour, moving 2,571 TEU in 21 hours and beating the September record of 82 TEU per hour. Ship to shore cranes were commissioned at Patenga in August.
The gap between a fast berth and a slow release is where Bangladesh shipments lose days. Port workers remain on hunger strike over the 15 year DP World concession signed on 8 October for New Mooring Terminal, which handles more than 40 percent of port container volume, and clearance on cotton yarn and bonded cargo is still unresolved. Book the vessel on the port data and the delivery on the clearance data.
Durban averages 7.33 days and both terminals are severe: Pier 1 at 6 to 11 days with isolated cases at 14, and Durban Gateway Terminal at 10 to 16 days with some vessels at 25. Kuehne+Nagel reports that some carriers are omitting Durban and rerouting, which pushes volume onto Port Elizabeth, where NCT already reports 2 to 3 days while PECT stays fluid at 0 to 1 day. Cape Town is the clean port at 1 day and suits time sensitive Western Cape cargo.
North and west of South Africa the picture is worse. Beira at 13 days remains critical. Conakry at 12.2 days allocates berths first come first served with one vessel per line. Pointe Noire at 4.89 days has yard occupancy near 95 percent and has suspended fixed window and FIFO berthing, prioritising the largest discharges. Dakar is at 2.2 days with yard above 82 percent. Each of these adds days that are invisible on a port to port quote.
Spider Logistics moves cargo from South China to Chittagong, Ashdod, Haifa, Durban, Mombasa, Jebel Ali and the wider Middle East and Africa region by sea and air, with customs clearance and door to door delivery handled in house. If you need a routing that shows the real waiting time at the destination gateway rather than the port to port transit, our team can build it lane by lane.