News / Shipping alliance reshuffle still causing major delays for barges at Rotterdam

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Barges are still being hit by week-long delays at Rotterdam’s RWG Terminal, almost a fortnight after holdups were first reported.

In a statement to customers, Contargo said it “regretted” that any improvement was still some way off.

“Assigning processing slots more than seven days after arrival of barges in the seaport still has to be expected,” said a spokesperson.

“Together with the terminal operators, we are endeavouring to speed up both the delivery of export containers and the taking over of import containers.”

The logistics operator said it did not expect any change in the situation over the next fortnight, and warned it could no longer guarantee deadlines would be met.

“Although we are making every effort to adhere to our schedules to and from Rotterdam, it cannot be ruled out that timetables may be affected,” it continued.

“Nor can it be completely ruled out that we might be forced to pass on extra costs for the delivery of containers; of course, in this case we would inform our customers about the costs in good time.”

While the port was unavailable for comment, a Rotterdam source told The Loadstar the delays were primarily the result of new alliances being phased in and old alliances being phased out.

“During this process, there have been more deepsea calls than normal, leading to higher-than-expected volumes,” said the source. “My understanding, though, is that service will be returning to normal in the next one to two weeks.”

The source added that all operators had been made aware of the process involved with bringing in the new alliances.