Russia, EU, China & Shipping Changes

March 25, 2022

Like all of you, wish we had better news out of Ukraine, but as of now no positive changes to report.

In Russia, we can still help get people out of the country, however, transit times and costs are extremely high.

There are two newer impacts to this crisis. Firstly, in the EU, much of the wood used in the shipping industry, as well as cardboard industry, comes from Ukraine. The lack of production will impact availability and of course, pricing.

The second is a large driver shortage in the UK and parts of the EU. Many drivers have returned to their home country to deal with the crisis, especially those that come from the impacted region. Moving containers and regular freight around the UK and EU is becoming increasingly difficult. It is taking many weeks to have containers dropped and picked up from our partners.

COVID continues to impact China and Hong Kong, leading to the highest congestion level in the past five months at critical ports. Infections are in the rise in some areas and with that, lock-downs will continue. We are currently seeing some easing at the US West Coast Ports, however, there will be significant impacts in the coming months as a result of the issues in China and Hong Kong.

The trend of containers falling off ships continues. This time the Dyros, operated by Maersk, lost roughly 90 containers in the North Pacific. We do not report all these incidents, however, we do immediately check to see if we had any shipments on-board and would notify any owners immediately.

We’ll close out with a bit of good news, the US Senate is making some headway in passing legislation that could help curtail high shipping costs, after seeing shipping lines report a record-breaking year in profits, doing so despite providing the worst service we have ever experienced. More on this legislation here. The British Association of Removers (household goods) in the UK is also working hard to get shipping costs somewhat under control.

As always, thank you for reading. If you have any questions or would like more information on anything, please reach out to us!

Enjoy the weekend!