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Delivery times for your latest Taobao or Shopee purchase might take even longer than before.

On March 11, The Business Times (BT) reported that container vessels planning to dock at Singapore's port are now facing longer wait times, due to a recent surge in vessel calls and container volumes.

Turnaround time increased to almost a week

According to S&P Global Platts, one source estimated that container vessels now need to wait five to seven days for turnaround, up from a maximum of two days for an ultra-large 18,000 TEU vessel.

The Loadstar reported that vessel turnaround times have more than doubled, alongside week-long cargo rollovers (when cargo cannot be loaded onto a vessel because the vessel ran out of capacity).

Regarding the congestion, a PSA spokesperson said:

“This exceptional situation is due to a confluence of factors, including an unprecedented and volatile surge in cargo demand, congestion across all nodes in the global supply chain (including depots, warehouses and seaports) due to renewed lockdowns, a lack of usable empty containers while laden ones are held up longer at these nodes, and shipping lines’ vessel sailing schedule reliability dropping to 10-year historical lows, causing further delays at almost every seaport worldwide.”

Additional resources have been deployed by PSA to support the increased activity – including priority discharge, top stowage, express delivery and timely updates.

PSA is also working with shipping line customers and cargo owners to alleviate the situation.

Not unique to Singapore

Speaking to BT, Ng Baoying, global managing editor for container shipping at S&P Global Platts, said that the congestion problem was not unique to Singapore.

She noted that in the U.S., the port at Los Angeles/Long Beach had at one point more than 34 container ships queueing at anchor.

CTI Consultancy director Andy Lane said that the congestion at Singapore's port was "far from being a critical situation", and added that he thinks Singapore was coping better than other ports, in terms of adapting capacity to meet peak demands.

S&P Global Platts noted that freight prices have increased as a result of the congestion.

Photo by ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP via Getty Image