41% of Containers Arrive at Ports Empty: Sea-Intelligence Study

When container ships teeming with boxes arrive at port, remember this little-known fact: about four in 10 of the boxes today are empty.
Sea-Intelligence, a Danish firm which analyzes the global supply chain industry, looked at the need to move empty containers — and the cost to move them.
“The present situation is that for every 10 miles a full container is shipped, there is now a need to ship an empty container 4.1 miles – sharply up from ‘just’ 3.1 miles in 2019, before the pandemic market disruptions,” Sea-Intelligence reported.
The need to move empty boxes is the result of countries which import more goods than they export, and vice versa.
Acumen, a Pakistani company, explained: “Some regions export far more than they import, while others are primarily import-driven. This creates container imbalances where one port is overflowing with empties while another struggles with shortages.”