Sourced from Flexport, published on 5 March:
Ocean Timeliness Indicators for China to Northern Europe increase while China to U.S. East/West Coast Stabilize
Welcome to the new Ocean Timeliness Indicator!
Due to ongoing global shipping events in the Panama and Suez Canal, we have refined our previous report by splitting the Transpacific Eastbound (TPEB) trade lane into two subtradelanes: TPEB to the U.S. West Coast, and TPEB to the U.S. East Coast.
The Methodology: The Flexport Ocean Timeliness Indicator (OTI) utilizes data from Flexport’s ocean shipping operations for an expansive view of the cargo’s journey.
Updated on a weekly basis, the Flexport OTI shows the transit time from the cargo ready date at the exporters’ factory or warehouse to the containers’ departure from the destination ocean port. The ocean shipping world tends to run along “trade lanes.” The three biggest east-west trade lanes carry goods from Asia to the U.S. West Coast, Asia to the U.S. East Coast, and from Asia to Northern Europe. The OTI captures the timeliness of each. As there are many transit time nuances from port to port and service to service, to show accurate trends, the OTI uses the following logic:
– Excludes premium services.
– Displayed transit times are based on a trailing two-week median.
– Major origin and destination ports are used as a proxy for the overall trade lane to create clear trends. Other origin or destination ports will have additional transit time considerations based on ocean carrier services.
– Asia to U.S. West Coast trade lane uses the China ports of Shanghai and Ningbo and the U.S. West Coast ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach.
– Asia to U.S. East Coast trade lane uses the China ports of Shanghai and Ningbo and the U.S. East Coast ports of New York/New Jersey and Norfolk.
– Asia to North Europe trade lane uses the China ports of Shanghai and Ningbo and the North Europe port of Rotterdam.
Week to March 4, 2024
This week, the OTI for China to Northern Europe increased to 63 days due to carrier re-routings from the Suez Canal to the Cape of Good Hope.
These transit times have begun to normalize but will change when carriers decide to transit the Red Sea again.
The OTI for China to the U.S. East Coast remains elevated at 59 days as some carriers route westward around Cape of Good Hope while most leverage the Panama Canal despite slot restrictions. The OTI for China to the U.S. West Coast remains at 37 days as the transit time impact from the Red Sea situation is minimal…
The full post, including OTI chart, is here.