The ‘supply chain crisis’ is used by media, politicians, and enterprises to describe why desirable goods and materials are not getting to destination factories and customers fast enough. It’s a convenient term to assign blame for shortages from the largest enterprises (Amazon or WalMart) to the smallest (70-80% of restaurants eliminated menu items). EkaLore explores some surrogate metrics to reveal deeper truths about the supply chain crisis.
The 29 US West Coast Ports have seen huge surges of incoming traffic since before the Covid-19 era (BCE). In 2020 BCE, the ports handled a little over 23 million TEUs (a 20-foot container equivalent unit). About 40% of all US TEUs comes thru LA’s Long Beach port. For comparison, US East Coast Ports have seen even larger percentage increases as West Coast Ports were congested. See the table below for specifics about port traffic increases:ases:
Port | Growth Rate | Notes |
Port of Los Angeles | 13% | 2021 10.7M TEU vs 2018 |
Port of Los Angeles | 16% | 2021 9.38M TEU vs 2020 |
Port of Oakland/SF | 9.3% | 2021 1.1M TEU vs 2018 |
Port of Seattle/Tacoma | 16.8% | Imports, 2021 3.7M TEU vs 2020 (combined) |
Port of San Diego | 8.9% | 11 mo/Nov-2021 74537 TEU vs 2020 |
Port of Vancouver | 24% | (surge only), 3.5M TEU 2020 |
| | All West Coast: 23M TEU 2021 |
East Coast breakdown | 12.1%-23.4% | All East Coast: 6.2M TEU-10.4M TEU 2021 (est 23.4%, import, thru Nov. excl NYNJ/MD/JAX, incl NY/NJ/MD/JAX est 12.1%) |
Covid-19 has affected port operations, as it has all industries. In 2020, about 15,000 workers worked at 70 ocean carriers and terminal operations. In 2021, these workers averaged about 165 Covid infections per month (totaling 1624 for the whole year). Compare this to the latest infection statistics. In January 2022, about 1,700 workers tested positive. Circumstances vary as 11%+ workers will lose many working shifts.
Worker shortages due to illness aren’t the only problem. The sheer backlog caused by an increase in traffic is to blame as well. There are 99 container ships waiting outside of the Long Beach terminal operations (January 28th, down from a high of 110 earlier in January). Using a BOTE of 8,200 TEUs per container ship and 178,000 TEU port handling capacity, that’s 4.5 weeks to get those ships all processed. The estimated average time delay is 16 days for any specific TEU still shipboard. Using a BOTE value of $44,000 per TEU gives a value of $35B just for Long Beach sitting offshore. For perspective Amazon’s Q3 2021 merchandise sales per month were ~$30B.
EkaLore has written earlier on changes in the retail and commercial marketspaces being changed by Alien Invaders. All marketspaces are being affected by the “supply chain crisis” where the logistics are key elements. Alien Invasions are both constrained and amplified depending on the marketspaBReach us at www.ekalore.com/contact to discuss how the opportunities, and pain, will affect your enterprise.
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