VIENNA (ICIS)–The likelihood of land and sea
supply chain difficulties ending anytime soon
is low, delegates and speakers at the ICIS
European Polymers Conference said on Monday.
The situation is “frantic” with global port
congestion, and operational costs remain high,
said Guenther Eberhard, senior and managing
partner at DistriConsult, speaking to delegates
at the conference.
“There is no quick fix,” added Eberhard.
Recent demurrage charges amounted to
€3,500/tonne per day, according to a trader
speaking on the sidelines of the conference.
The market is dealing with unreliable deep-sea
import deliveries, only to then face land
transport difficulties once the imports arrive.
“It depends on the origin of the shipping line,
but delays are amounting to three-to-four
weeks,” a distributor said.
Most delays have come off their peak, but still
have an impact on markets.
Once the ships arrive, finding the trucks then
becomes the problem: there are simply not
enough truck drivers for the chain to run
smoothly.
The lack of containers has resulted in a
preference for break bulk, but the organisation
is laborious, the distributor said.
Some buyers have been able to buy smaller
volumes such as 500 tonnes, due to them
combining their volumes with other customers.
Break bulk comes with considerable risks, not
least loss of product and contamination.
The continued high sea and land freight costs
and problems therein, are just part of the
rising production costs, and problems facing
raw materials and energy.
The ICIS European Polymers Conference runs in
Vienna on 9-10 May and is the first in-person
ICIS conference for 27 months. It brings
together the events PET Value Chain, World
Polyolefins, and European Recycling. Read
the agenda
here.
