The abandonment of thousands of containers caused congestion in the port of Montreal

The Port of Montreal is facing major congestion problems caused by thousands of containers abandoned by their customers, due to a lack of interest or not enough space to own them, I learned Newspaper.

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“If the situation was simple, we would have already resolved it,” answers Daniel Dagnais, Vice President, Port Performance and Sustainable Development for the Montreal Port Authority (MPA). But since it is not (simple), we are monitoring the situation closely and assure you that we are working tirelessly to prevent it. from aggravation.

The port of Montreal is considered the most important in the east of the country. It is 26 kilometers long on the banks of the Saint Lawrence River, and accommodates about 2,000 ships, 1.7 million containers and 35 million tons of cargo annually.

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end in time?

So far, the port has been relatively spared the logistical chaos that has hit the majority of the major ports on the planet. However, things have started to get complicated for him in recent weeks, and to avoid further delays, companies have changed their ways of doing things.

The right on timewhich for decades were a kind of controlled supply chain across the planet, eventually giving way to just in casesummarizes Matteo Charbonneau, CEO of Gargo M, the Montreal Logistics Group Secretariat.

It’s clear what happened: With their old orders still getting late, importers also started taking orders much earlier than usual, creating a bottleneck that no one seemed to plan for.

three times longer

The result: Instead of receiving the goods within two days of arriving at the port as planned, companies have since this spring been deferring their commitments.

Delays of “5 to 10 days” per container are no longer rare, Mr. Dagenais acknowledges.

And while he’s working on it, things aren’t getting much better. Last month, the average container survival was 12.9 days, three times the time it logged on the same date last year…

This lack of movement, among the “tens of thousands of containers” waiting to be taken care of by their customers, results in containers that are 30% higher than normal, Mr. Dagenais assessed. That’s enough to cause the congestion it’s currently in and threaten the port with a ban if things don’t improve soon.

Land shortage

Before getting there, only APM and Cargo M can encourage the respective customers to assume their responsibilities by receiving their merchandise. But with not enough storage space at their disposal, many still prefer to pay the fines ($350 to $600 a day) imposed on them, Mr. Charbonneau laments.

The latter invites companies to refer to the draft Storage Spaces Handbook that Cargo M prepared for them. Currently, it lists 16 million square feet outdoors and 2 million square feet indoors which could help ease congestion at the port.

“Any space or land that could serve as a surplus would be welcome,” he says, sharing his fingers that a solution could be found quickly.

problem that It gets worse quickly

Average duration of containers staying in the port of Montreal:

• 4.9 days In 2021
• 8.3 days In 2022 (January to July)
• 12.9 days For July 2022