With container empties surpluses prior to Christmas 2019, COVID and numerous industrial actions the situation of imports to exports has definitely not been balanced causing the congestion issues.

Relief to this situation does not seem imminent until such time as “sweeper vessels” are scheduled to evacuate significant volumes of containers.

The decreased capacity in the Sydney empty container park (ECP) market is seeing shipping lines advise that they are unable to provide de-hire locations for the empty containers. Freight & Trade Alliance  (FTA) continue to seek blanket detention waivers while shipping lines are  acting on a case by case basis.

Here’s hoping that shipping lines deploy large capacity sweeper vessels to evacuate empties for the situation to be resolved soon.