Vessels are spending more time at berths in China’s Ningbo port as draconian Covid-control measures disrupt trucking and storage services. The number of containerships with a berthing time of two days or more has increased considerably since October 14 when a heavy-handed lockdown started in the city’s Beilun district, Lloyd’s List Intelligence data shows. As one of the world’s largest and most efficient box ports, Ningbo boasts an average berthing time of about one day.

A total of 95 containerships have called at terminals in Beilun over the past week, according to the data. Of those, 12 ships, or 13%, have stayed at berth for two days or longer. The figures include ships that have yet to be untied. In comparison, that proportion between August and September stood at just 7.5%. At the other two major terminals in Daxie Island and Meishan Island near Beilun, the ratio has increased to 25% and 30%, respectively, from less than 1% and 12.4% over the same period of time. A shortage of container truckers and the shutdown of warehouses and storage yards, which have led to a snarl-up in landside transport, are believed to be the main culprit for the increased time at berth.

In a customer advisory, Hapag-Lloyd said it was offering free booking cancellation for export shipments of all products loading or discharging at Ningbo port, with an estimated time of departure or arrival from October 17. The Hamburg-based carrier is also providing free detention on cancelled shipments, empty equipment return and free booking amendment for changing loading port. It has also suspended the detention calculation. Even so, the disruption remains “controllable”, said a senior manager in charge of China-related routes from a leading European carrier.

Vessel handling and terminal operations were not directly affected by the rise for positive test cases for coronavirus in Ningbo, he said, as no infection within the port has been reported thanks to the so-called closed-loop management system that keeps port workers isolated from the other parts of the city. Meanwhile, reduced cargo volume, specially to Europe and the US, in the current market conditions has also helped cushion the blow.

Local authorities are striving to solve the logistics bottleneck caused by the lockdown. More than 17,000 of some 20,000 registered container truck drivers have been added to a whitelist used to grant them access to the port via designated routes and travel within the Jiangsu province, where Ningbo is based. Ningbo has also reopened 12 storage yards and seven warehouses outside of the port area for those whitelisted truckers, in addition to increased barge and rail services to connect the hinterland.

Mao Jianhong, chairman of Zhejiang Seaport Group that operates Ningbo and several other smaller ports in the province, claimed the company “is facing tremendous challenges” to control the virus while unclogging the logistic traffic. Any turning point in the current outbreak in Ningbo is yet to arrive as the number of positive test cases continued to increase, he said. The latest government update shows the city reported 17 new positive test cases on October 20, following 23 cases for the day earlier. All those, however, were tested positive from the quarantine sites, suggesting a lower risk of further community transmission.