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Displaying items by tag: Exceeds Suez Indident

Disruption caused by the partial closure of the key south China Port of Yantian and its impact is set to exceed that of the Suez Canal blockage in late March and April, according to senior container shipping sources, with the ripple effects already being felt across supply chains.

According to LloydsLoadingList, container shipping industry commentator Lars Jensen, CEO of shipping consultancy Vespucci Maritime, observed that it “clearly currently appears that supply chain problems are worsening and not improving”. He highlighted that “the impact of the South China port issues continues to escalate”, and that the proportion of vessels affected “exceed the Suez incident”.

Taking a “quick look at four carriers, across each of the major alliances”, he yesterday highlighted that Maersk now advises that 64 of its vessels or its partner vessels in the 2M alliance have omitted Yantian and Shekou, with six switching to call in Nansha or Hong Kong, noting that “this is up from 40 vessels listed just two days ago”.

He notes that ONE now advises that 52 of THE Alliance’s vessels are being impacted, with 41 omissions and 11 changes typically from Yantian to Nansha – up from 27 vessels, of which 20 were omissions and seven were port changes, in their last advisory 5 days ago.

More here on this impact to global trade.

Published in Ports & Shipping

About Brittany Ferries

In 1967 a farmer from Finistère in Brittany, Alexis Gourvennec, succeeded in bringing together a variety of organisations from the region to embark on an ambitious project: the aim was to open up the region, to improve its infrastructure and to enrich its people by turning to traditional partners such as Ireland and the UK. In 1972 BAI (Brittany-England-Ireland) was born.

The first cross-Channel link was inaugurated in January 1973, when a converted Israeli tank-carrier called Kerisnel left the port of Roscoff for Plymouth carrying trucks loaded with Breton vegetables such as cauliflowers and artichokes. The story, therefore, begins on 2 January 1973, 24 hours after Great Britain's entry into the Common Market (EEC).

From these humble beginnings however, Brittany Ferries as the company was re-named quickly opened up to passenger transport, then became a tour operator.

Today, Brittany Ferries has established itself as the national leader in French maritime transport: an atypical leader, under private ownership, still owned by a Breton agricultural cooperative.

Eighty five percent of the company’s passengers are British.

Key Brittany Ferries figures:

  • Turnover: €202.4 million (compared with €469m in 2019)
  • Investment in three new ships, Galicia plus two new vessels powered by cleaner LNG (liquefied natural gas) arriving in 2022 and 2023
  • Employment: 2,474 seafarers and shore staff (average high/low season)
  • Passengers: 752,102 in 2020 (compared with 2,498,354 in 2019)
  • Freight: 160,377 in 2020 (compared with 201,554 in 2019)
  • Twelve ships operating services that connect France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain (non-Covid year) across 14 routes
  • Twelve ports in total: Bilbao, Santander, Portsmouth, Poole, Plymouth, Cork, Rosslare, Caen, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Saint-Malo, Roscoff
  • Tourism in Europe: 231,000 unique visitors, staying 2.6 million bed-nights in France in 2020 (compared with 857,000 unique visitors, staying 8,7 million bed-nights in 2019).