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Cyclone Tauktae: Knock-on impact on shipping and logistics industry to sustain for 2-3 weeks
Shalin Shah, Vice President, Business Development at Frieghtwalla
Cyclone Tauktae has unquestionably left a trail of destruction across the coastal regions Gujarat and Maharashtra and parts of Karnataka and Goa. Barring select few large ports, such as Mundra and JNPT operations at majority of the ports remain suspended in the wake of the cyclone. Owing to this most of the port area has been evacuated, leaving only very essential staff and security personnel on the ground, while many vessels scheduled to route through western parts of the country have called off berthing. Only the control rooms at the ports are active for monitoring purposes.
This has definitely pushed all the operations on the back foot, resulting in congestion on the port as a short-term impact. Even though the storm’s intensity has lessened, it still doesn’t allow free flow of the operations when it comes to cargo movement and the operations have been suspended until Friday across most of the western ports. As of now, all the vessels alongside the port are anchored for safety reasons, and the vessels are moved away from the land side to the holding point of view.
The Shipping and Logistics industry has already been reeling under pressure owing to a series of industry challenges — 2nd wave of COVID, container shortage, skyrocketed freight rates, the Suez Canal crisis being the latest. Cyclone Tauktae has worsened the situation hampering the supply chain, including health and other emergency essentials. The landing of Cyclone has worsened the overall situation. While it’s too early to quantify the exact amount of revenue loss, the midterm impact will result in severe disruption across the shipping sector, accounting for vessel delays and/or shutout of containers due to changes in the sailing schedules. The knock-on effect of the same is expected to sustain even longer, accounting for the next 2-3 weeks until normalcy resumes.
