The situation in European transshipment ports

As many of you have probably experienced, we have seen major problems in the European transshipment ports for some time. According to a report from Container Trade Statistics (CTS), bookings for import shipments from China to Northern Europe increased by 17.6% in December 2024 compared to the same month last year, which is part of the reason behind the problem. In addition, many transshipment ports were already behind in their handling before this situation, making the strain even greater. In some cases, we are therefore now seeing delays of up to 10-14 days, with intended arrival dates being moved forward at short notice.

However, something that can ease the impact in the transshipment ports is that the booked import volumes have been lower since the end of January/beginning of February. When smaller volumes arrive, it can hopefully mean that the ports catch up with their handling, which in the long run can reduce delays. We will probably not see the consequences of this until the end of March/beginning of April, but it may lead to an improvement in the situation.

New environmental statistics for your sea freight

As all of you are aware, since the beginning of 2024, container ships have been sailing via the Cape of Good Hope in Southern Africa instead of via the Suez Canal as we are used to. This means a longer transportation distance, which we need to consider in our environmental statistics of your transports.

Since such a situation has not occurred before, we have for some time been investigating how to best report this to you and have now come up with a solution.

If you go to our customer portal under the “My Shipments” module, you can press the “Export to Excel” button to get the statistics on all the shipments we have handled for you. For the sea freight shipments that are arriving with ETA from March 1, 2024, you will now see a new column that contains the emissions for the extra transport distance that the route via Southern Africa entails.

As always, the environmental statistics are presented only after we have invoiced you for each shipment, because it is by then we get the actual CO2 emissions based on the shipping company that your goods have travelled with. So, for the shipments that we have not invoiced yet, these columns are empty.

If you have any questions or need help with your environmental statistics, you are very welcome to contact us!

With kind regards,

FMS Sweden.