DELAYS AT SOUTHAMPTON

We have been informed by Southampton Container Terminals (SCT) that, on Friday 18th January, the boom of a crane collapsed onto the vessel “Kyoto Express”. Nobody was injured, but the emergency services were called and it was a major task to clear the area and remove the boom. As a result of this incident, operations were suspended at the container terminal and many vessels were held up outside the port. Whilst we understand the terminal is now open, the recovery of the boom debris has not yet been completed, and the berth is currently running with reduced crane capacity.

Inevitably, due to the backlog of vessels waiting to dock and be unloaded,  shipping lines are taking decisions on whether to bypass Southampton and go directly into continental ports. The first such instance of this is the “OOCL Belgium” which will now omit Southampton and call at Antwerp where the UK bound cargo will be offloaded and put on a feeder vessel arriving 24th January, which is 3 days later than scheduled.