No end in sight for global supply crisis

But Maersk posts record profit from surge in cost of shipping

The chaos that has crippled global supply chains will extend into next year, says the world’s biggest shipping company.

AP Moller-Maersk warned a lack of truck drivers was preventing hundreds of container vessels from offloading goods around the world.

‘The whole system has become one gigantic bottleneck,’ said Maersk chief executive Soren Skou yesterday.

‘A too-large proportion of our capacity is tied up lying waiting outside the ports,’ he added.

The crisis is hitting ports around the world – from Felixstowe to Los Angeles. Skou said: ‘The ports are not working as well as they should do, so we can’t discharge containers as fast as we would like. It’s hard to see exactly when the situation will improve.’

he said that Christmas trading would be ‘safe’ from the supply chain issues, but added: ‘At least that’s what I’m hearing from our customers.’

A 60-foot-high mountain of shipping containers has built up in a field in Suffolk as the nearby port of Felixstowe struggles with congestion caused by a lack of lorry drivers and the global sea freight crisis.

hundreds of empty steel containers stretching for 350 feet are being stored on a former airfield near eye, which is 26 miles from Britain’s biggest container port.

The site is being used by Maersk, which handles one in five of the world’s shipping containers, to store empty ones to clear space at Felixstowe.

Skou said the biggest problem preventing containers from leaving ports was a lack of workers, particularly drivers of heavy goods vehicles, despite salaries having risen ‘significantly’.

There are now 300 container vessels laying idle outside ports, Skou said. The comments came as Maersk reported robust thirdquarter earnings on the back of record freight prices driven by the supply chain problems as the global economy recovers from the coronavirus crisis.

Revenue grew nearly 68pc in the third quarter, to a record-high of £12.2bn. That was up from £7.3bn in the same period last year.

It reported profits of £4bn, up from £694m.

Skou said: ‘In the ongoing exceptional market situation, with high demand in the US and global disruptions to the supply chains, we continued to increase capacity and expand our offering to keep cargo moving.’

The need for more capacity comes amid soaring demand for everything from cars to furniture. Coupled with labour shortages that has led to major back-ups at ports and higher prices. Maersk has added more capacity but did not offset the port congestion. A Road haulage Association survey estimates there is now a shortage of more than 100,000 qualified drivers in the UK.