Container ships resume berthing at Ningbo terminal closed for quarantine

Container ships have started berthing again at the Meishan Island International Container Terminal at China's Port of Ningbo Zhoushan on Aug. 24, two weeks after the terminal stopped accepting new vessels after a positive COVID-19 test among port workers.

The 9,365 twenty-foot equivalent unit capacity CMA CGM Elbe berthed at Meishan Island from the Ningbo/Zhoushan Anchorage, where the number of ships waiting declined to around 40 on Aug. 24 from more than 50 at the end of last week, according to Platts cFlow trade-flow analytics software.

The 2,702 TEU-capacity SITC Chulai also berthed at the Meishan Island Aug. 24, while Evergreen Line's 1,837-capacity Taurus berthed at the terminal Aug. 21.

The resumption of berthing activity raised hopes that the disruption to operations at Ningbo would not be as great as at Shenzhen's Yantian port, where export operations were halted in May and curtailed to about 50% for a month after multiple port workers tested positive, creating knock-on port congestion around South China and a backlog of cargoes that is still adding to vessel queues and waiting times at US West Coast ports.

The Meidong terminal at Meishan Island halted operations Aug. 11 after a port worker tested positive for COVID-19. New berthing was halted until the area was decontaminated and workers were quarantined, reducing container throughput capacity at the Port of Ningbo Zhoushan by about 25% in the interim period.

The Port of Ningbo Zhoushan, China's second-busiest container port after Shanghai and third-busiest in the world, handled 16.07 million TEUs in the first six months of 2021, an increase of 21.3% from January-June 2020, according to China's Ministry of Transport.

Ocean Alliance members Cosco, Evergreen and CMA CGM are the primary users of the Meishan Island terminals at the port.