Another diverted shipment reported, related to congestion issues at Fairview Terminal

More diversion announcements for the Fairview Container facility, 
with a scheduled visit  from the COSCO vessel Xin Fei Zhou
for Monday now diverted to Vancouver

As we head into the end of January, it would appear that there is still a slight congestion issue facing the Port of Prince Rupert's Fairview Container facility, with an international shipping agency making note of a recent diversion away from Prince Rupert by the Cosco shipping line.

Delmar International issued an advisory to customers on January 26th noting that the Cosco line had decided to redirect the vessel Xin Fei Zhou to Vancouver, instead of its original port of call of Fairivew, the shipping agency cited severe congestion as the reason.

The Cosco ship was scheduled to arrive in Prince Rupert today.

The XIN FEI ZHOU working the North America - Asia transit
(photo from the website Vessel Finder)

The notice to customers outlines the range of factors are in play that are said to be affecting the transit of containers at Fairview.

"Due to a number of factors including severe winter weather, derailments, lack of sufficient railcars and higher shipping volumes prior to Chinese New Year, the Port of Prince Rupert is currently experiencing severe congestion which has resulted in a backlog of import containers and higher than usual dwell times."

You can read more about the Cosco plans from the Delmar International information site.

The Port of Prince Rupert listings still had the vessel inbound to Prince Rupert as of this morning, with what would appear to be a one hour stop over in place from 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM

As for any diversion plans from the COSCO line, to this point, neither the Port of Prince Rupert or DP World, have offered up any background notes related to the Delmar notice of the weekend, or towards any ongoing congestion issues at the container terminal.

Should either organization provide any information on the situation we will include that as part of this article, updating the piece at the bottom of the page.

Today's reported diversion is one of a number that have taken place since last September, which saw the Fairview facility facing delays that at the time were described as related to the recent expansion work taking place at the container facility.

In December, we recounted reports from the industrial news magazine Journal of Commerce that the dwell time concerns had returned in late November,  with delays in moving containers at times said to be at ten to fifteen days.

As Fairview headed out of the holiday period, it had been reported that the days of delays and diversions were behind the port, with hopes of a return to the two and half day standard set to arrive as the port moved into the early days of 2018.

The Port of Prince Rupert is not the only port suffering from some early January issues.

On January 16th Delmar also highlighted some of the congestion troubles facing the Port of Vancouver, citing many of the same conditions that are being experienced through the North Coast gateway.

You can find more items of interest related to Fairview Terminal here.

More background on the Port of Prince Rupert can be found on our archive page.

Update to the original story can be found here.



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