Shipping's container chaos to continue, DP World exec says

The chaos being experienced in the global container shipping industry is expected to continue for some time with a shortage of an estimated four million boxes creating havoc with congestion, routes and freight rates, according to an executive at logistics conglomerate DP World.

Andrew Hoad told the Bureau of International Recycling's (BIR) annual convention that shipping and leasing companies opted to pause production of containers in April-June 2020 due to expectations of lower demand during the Covid-19 pandemic.
This meant that around 1.0 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) of new containers out of 3.5-4.0 million TEU typically produced in a year were not injected into the global logistics system, estimated Hoad, DP World's chief network officer, supply chain and logistics.
This is equivalent to 2% of a fully-serviceable global fleet, estimated by DP World to be around 50 million TEU, he noted.

The container shortage was significantly compounded by a period of...

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