International moving companies may find themselves caught up in “safe port” practices that are being used by shipping lines in response to the conflict in the Middle East.
Freight forwarders have told The Loadstar that they are seeing their shipping containers “dumped anywhere,” resulting in additional costs falling back on them. “There is the fee we are charged for the unloading, then they are also hitting us with storage charges. They drop these boxes anywhere they want, and they are offering us no support, often not even telling us until the container has been unloaded,” claimed one forwarder.
The Loadstar reported an example of containers headed for Dubai having been left at Qingdao Port in China, the start of the vessel’s journey. Another forwarder said that the carriers were trying to get cargo comparatively close to final destination. “We had a Saudi-destined box left in Egypt,” they commented.
Chief Executive Vincent Clerk of Maersk, one of the shipping lines highlighted for the practice, told CNN, “We’ve numerous ships that are on their way to the region, for which we have had to have contingencies about where they’re going to drop cargo. They are not going to wait for the strait to reopen. We will stage the cargo either in Oman or in Jeddah, or in other places, in ports where we have access, and then the ship will go on its way to the next assignment.”