The Canadian Labor Minister Steve Mackinnon has ordered a resolution to the dispute that has affected the ports of Vancouver, Prince Rupert, and Montreal since November 4th.
CNBC's Lori Ann LaRocco shared the news yesterday evening, citing concerns that "the damage to the supply chain has been done", a sentiment echoed by the eeSea team.
While total vessels at anchorage remain relatively low for Montreal (1 waiting, 2 in port) and Prince Rupert (1 waiting, 1 in port) - Vancouver paints a more extreme picture with 10 vessels at anchorage and just 1 in port. Some vessels like the EVER STEADY have been holding a place in queue for 13 consecutive days.
The positive turn comes at a crucial time for both the Canadian and United States economy. With peak season just around the corner and shippers in a Trump victory fueled frontloading frenzy, there is little room for operational delays, unexpected port-swaps, and chaotic schedule reliability.
Our team is yet to observe any tangible updates to the terminal sites reflecting this news. Many Canadian terminal portals have been lacking any details on truck or rail cut-off dates since Monday, with Deltaport schedules not showing any actionable dates until early December.
It is likely will we see a minimum 3-4 week recovery time before reliability returns to a relative equilibrium as many vessels have accrued additional strike related delays of a week or more. As always, this will have a cascade effect on sister vessels from the same services following in their stead.
Here's an interactive version of our congestion graph, hosted by Tableau Online.
The Canadian strike is discussed at length in eeSea's monthly newsletter: The North American update - November 12th 2024 Edition.
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