EsThe toll from Hurricane Florence, now a tropical depression, continued to be felt in the port of Wilmington, NC which will remain closed through Wednesday. That will bring the total closure to a week and comes as the National Weather Service warns of the risks of sudden flooding. Both bring the risk of disruptions to regional supply chains even though the reopening of Charleston should relieve international shipping strains.
As outlined in Panjiva research of September 11 port reopening can typically take days even after an extreme event, though the ability of logistics firms to complete out-of-port (and into-port) carriage can take longer to do so.
Panjiva data shows the largest consignees relying on Wilmington include apparel-maker Gildan (4,952 TEUs in the past year, or 4.5% of containerized traffic), construction equipment manufacturer Caterpillar (2,212 TEUs) and specialty chemicals producer Evonik (912 shipments including bulk products).
Source: Panjiva
For manufacturers with U.S. assembly / production such as Caterpillar there can be knock-on effects to other parts of their supply chain nationwide. In the case of Wilmington disruptions to the supply chain should be minimal given its major import lines are completed backhoes and spares (included in 49.8% of shipments in the past 12 months) and shovel loaders (34.0%) from the U.K. Imports to other ports that focus on parts, such as Newark or Houston, could have proven more disruptive.
Source: Panjiva
