Beacon Report: Container backlogs persist in May 2025

The latest Beacon Port Performance Report highlights a growing concern over rising container dwell times across several global ports, particularly in North America, South America, and Europe, despite a reduction in the total number of ships handled compared to April.

Key findings:

• Kingston (Jamaica) recorded the worst performance, with containers remaining in port for over 12 days, underscoring serious yard congestion and throughput inefficiencies in the region.

• Chittagong (Bangladesh) continues to face operational strain, with ships waiting over 71 hours to berth. This marks the second consecutive month Chittagong ranks among the least efficient ports worldwide, due to prolonged berth operations and anchorage queues.

• In South America, ports like Colón (Panama) and Cartagena (Colombia) emerged as new congestion points—not because of offshore ship delays, but due to slow yard operations, with dwell times of over 9 days and 8.5 days respectively.

• In Africa, Durban (South Africa) posted an average berth time of 3.8 days, while Mombasa (Kenya) followed closely with nearly 3.7 days. Containers in Mombasa waited more than 4.5 days, raising red flags over growing bottlenecks in East Africa as trade volumes rise. Hopes now rest on Transnet’s recovery and reform plan to boost Durban’s efficiency.

• Taipei recorded the lowest average berth time globally at just 0.38 days, showing strong performance on ship turnaround.

Despite a 11% month-on-month decline in total ship calls globally, the number of vessels at anchorage fell sharply by 27% in May, indicating an improvement at sea—but not yet onshore.

May’s data reflects a reality of delays in container dwell times, said the Beacon analytics team. There is a shift in delay patterns where the issue is no longer just ships waiting at sea, but terminals struggling to move boxes off the yard. That is where the bottleneck now lives.

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