The number. As of 21 August 2026, 1.85 million teu of vessel capacity is sitting outside ports — 4.55% of the world container fleet waiting for a berth instead of sailing. The figure comes from the Anchorage Congestion Indicator, which tracks 45 ports, and was reported by Kuehne+Nagel on 21 August citing ShippingWatch and FreightWaves. The queues are not in one place: North Europe, China, Brazil, West Africa and India.
Two weeks on, the queue has grown
On 19 August we wrote about 1.7 million teu tied up in congestion. The figure now quoted is 1.85 million. The two readings are not the same measurement — Sea-Intelligence then, the Anchorage Congestion Indicator now — so they should not be compared to the decimal. What matters is the direction of travel, and that has not changed.
The disagreement is about the cause
Maersk chief executive Vincent Clerc points to landside infrastructure as the decisive constraint: berths, yards and hinterland links that have not kept pace with volume. Two of the most widely followed analysts in the trade, Peter Sand of Xeneta and Lars Jensen of Vespucci Maritime, put the Red Sea at the centre instead — Houthi attacks, the long way round the Cape of Good Hope, tension in the Strait of Hormuz. On their reading, congestion is a temporary effect rather than a structural fault.
Why the answer matters if you are buying equipment
This is not an academic argument. The two readings lead to opposite decisions. If the constraint sits ashore, it clears only with more operating capacity — and long before new berths are built, operating capacity means the machines that work the yard. If the constraint is the Red Sea, the queue unwinds by itself once ships return to Suez, and the urgency to buy goes with it.
Anyone who has worked a terminal for a few years knows the two explanations are not mutually exclusive. Even if the Red Sea reopened tomorrow, terminals would still be sized for yesterday’s volumes — the point we made on 19 August. And a machine missing from the yard in peak week cannot be bought new: lead times for new equipment are measured in months. That is why, when demand moves quickly, overhauled used machines and parts availability are worth more than a price list.
What to watch in the coming weeks
- whether the queue falls back below 1.7 million teu — that would make it a spike;
- whether it moves region rather than shrinking — that would mean it follows volume, not the routeing;
- berth expansion announcements and concession renewals, the real thermometer of landside investment;
- freight rates: if they climb while the queue shortens, the ship was never the bottleneck.
In the meantime, terminals that have to move boxes now work with what is on the ground. Best Lift supplies overhauled reachstackers, empty container handlers and heavy duty forklifts, with the spare parts to keep them running.
Source: Kuehne+Nagel, “Port congestion and Red Sea risks keep container shipping under pressure”, 21 August 2026, citing ShippingWatch and FreightWaves. Our earlier piece is here.
