Dive Brief:
- With the possible resurgence of Spanish port strikes from May 24 - June 9, Ford Motors stands to face significant delays as rerouting takes its toll, Panjiva reported.
- Maersk, which transports Ford parts, revealed that within the past year, roughly 4,630 TEUs of materials have passed through Spain, making it the busiest carrier.
- In March, when the first port slowdowns occurred, a 15.8% drop in exports occurred, though recovery commenced in April once the slowdowns ended. March's volume was the worst in four years.
Dive Insight:
The amount of potential damage befalling ocean transports at a port slowdown is extremely high, with Maersk Line reporting alleged losses of nearly $13.3 million during the previous Spanish slowdown in March. Hapag-Lloyd is also due to face significant losses due to the pending slowdowns, due to its 4,544 TEUs from plastics firm DAK.
While not as devastating as a full strike, slowdowns are notorious for expressing a point: longshoremen and stevedores are not satisfied with current conditions. As recently as late February in the U.S., threatened strikes at ports along the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts garnered the world's attention, earning concern from The Agriculture Transportation Council, The National Retail Federation and the National Industrial Transportation, who together issued a press release urging cooperation between the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) and the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX). A previous shutdown in 2014 was estimated to have cost over a billion dollars per day.
Regardless of disruption, the ongoing non-compliance of Spain cannot continue. The country will either be forced to follow European Union standards for stevedores, or drop the continuing effort to earn enough votes to force their hand once and for all. Whether Spain faces consequences from Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd is unknown, but the two big shippers can't be happy about another disruption so soon after the first.
