From Bad to Worse With No End in Sight

Things on the West Coast Ports are going from bad to worse (for those who missed it read “Catastrophic Shutdown Of America’s Supply Chain” Begins: Stunning Photos Of West Coast Port Congestion), and with no resolution in sight, it is now beginning to cripple the US economy. Here is a brief summary, courtesy of the WSJ, of how the near-strike is already impacting various businesses across the US:

• Ocean carrier Maersk Line has canceled some sailings, while China Ocean Shipping (Group) Co. said it will skip at least one port
• Shipping line CMA CGM Group said it has “adapted its schedule and has been modifying its ports call order.” China Ocean Shipping said it has canceled some port stops.
• Truckers that normally haul an average of five containers a day away from the Port of Oakland, Calif., are lucky to haul one.
• At the Port of Oakland, truck drivers can spend up to three days waiting in line before hauling one container out of the yard, says Henry Osaki, an employee at an Oakland-based trucking company.
• A West Coast customs broker said that her customers are being assessed as much as $300 a day for containers that sit too long on the docks, though the containers are trapped there.
• Levi Strauss & Co. said it was concerned it wouldn’t receive some products in time for spring deliveries.
• As of Monday, Honda Motor Co. was experiencing parts shortages at plants in Ohio, Indiana and Canada that will affect its production on multiple days over the next week.
• The Agriculture Transportation Coalition estimates that port delays and congestion have reduced U.S. agricultural exports by $1.75 billion a month, while the North American Meat Institute put losses to U.S. meat and poultry producers at more than $85 million a week, including hides and skins.
• The delays could cost retailers alone as much as $3.8 billion this year, according to an analysis by consulting firm Kurt Salmon. Adding in rerouting and carrying costs and other expenses could bring retailers’ total costs to $7 billion this year, the firm said.
• Bert von Roemer, owner of Serengeti Trading Co., a Dripping Springs, Texas, coffee importer began rerouting coffee beans he intended to ship to the West Coast to Houston, Norfolk, Virginia and New York. “I’m railing the coffee across” to roasters in California, he said. “It’s costing me about $2,000 extra per container,”

And so on, as more and more distributors, retailers, producers, manufacturers, and ordinary mom and pop business, decide that the time has come to blame something – last year it was the Polar Vortex which compared to the current climate conditions was a spring breeze – for what is a global economic depression, one from which the US is not decoupling. That something being the west coast port strike this time, coming soon to a Wall Street scapegoating “analyst” near you soon.

For those interested in tracking the port congestion as it gets progressively worse, here is a live map courtesy of MarineTraffic:

Reprinted with permission from Zero Hedge.