CALGARY -- The massive, 400-metre-long Ever Given is causing billions of dollars in delays, but the impacts will reach far beyond the Middle East.
The container ship ran aground Tuesday, blocking the Suez Canal, a shortcut around the African continent that carries about 10 per cent of world trade.
Sam Woods with Calgary-based shipping company Jori Logistics, says the disruption will only exaggerate an existing problem.
He says it's not just the ships and their cargo, but the shortage of containers that are causing further backlogs.
"Container rates have doubled – tripled in some cases – and if we have a client that wants to order a shipment, sometimes they're waiting four to six weeks for it to get on the boat," Woods says.
He attributes the shortage in large part to a shutdown of the port of Long Beach, Calif., following a COVID-19 outbreak.
"This whole container shortage thing is only going to get worse," he said.
The immediate delay will also likely tighten supplies of agricultural processing equipment, frozen beef and pork, powdered milk as well as some Asian foods, according to Sylvain Charlebois, director of Dalhousie University's Agri-Foods Analytics Lab.
"There's little or no inventory in Canada. Everything is run very tightly, so as soon as there's a problem like that, it will create a backlog very, very quickly," says Charlebois.
