Storms in North Europe

We would like to share an update on the operating landscape following the storms in North Europe, which disrupted our network and our customers’ supply-chains over the weekend. Between Thursday 17th and Sunday 20th February operations have been suspended for approximately 72 hours on average across our network of Ports. This has caused further disruptions in the terminals and a backlog of vessels waiting to berth.

Our immediate priority has been to secure the safety of our fleet, our seafarers and our customers’ cargo by ensuring safe harbour and shelter from the storm. Despite some of the highest winds on record we can report that most of our vessels navigated the storm safely. Peter Drake, Head of Capacity, Feeder & Network in North Europe, puts some words on the current situation:

We had one critical incident involving a chartered vessel Marcos V where 26 empty containers were lost overboard due to winds Saturday morning in transit from Bremerhaven to Rotterdam. The meteorological institute for the Netherlands issued a rare Code Red warning for Storm Eunice with wind gusts reaching 100-120 km/h in some locations, but with the assistance of tugs the vessel was brought alongside safely in Rotterdam. This was the sole incident in our fleet and as the containers were empty, the customer impact was minimal. Our teams have been supporting local authorities with their ongoing investigations.

The focus in the coming days is on recovering delays and reducing the waiting time in already pressured Northern European ports. While we bring our vessel back on schedule, we are continuously assessing the delay and our colleagues are working relentlessly to alleviate the knock-on effects of these weather conditions to minimize the impact on your global supply chain. For the rest of the week, for now the next storm is heading north and forecast shows wind being <28knots and we are following up closely.

To give you as much visibility into the situation as possible, please see our AI-powered predictive analysis and estimated times of arrival (ETA). As a Maersk customer you can also make use our interactive map functionality. Click here to login to the Hub.

Giving you the best ability to manage your supply chain is of the utmost priority to us and we are working to give you the information you need to do so. Our teams are here to serve you, so please contact us if you have any questions.