Bad weather and resulting congestion at ports in Asia is causing vessel delays of up to a week at key gateways in the region, carriers say. 

Hapag-Lloyd said fog is the main problem at ports in China, including Shanghai and Ningbo, while torrential rain and poor visibility were issues in Malaysia and Singapore. 

The adverse conditions meant vessels could not berth even as more ships arrived at anchorage, leading to vessel bunching that exacerbated port congestion. Yard congestion in Singapore also contributed to the delays there, Hapag-Lloyd said in an advisory Thursday. 

The delays come on top of the extra 10- to 14-day transit carriers face due to diverting vessels around southern Africa to avoid the risk of attack in the Red Sea region. 

One of the worst-affected facilities is the Shanghai East Container Terminal, where there are delays of up to seven days, Maersk said in an advisory this week. Other terminals in Shanghai are seeing delays of up to three days, while Ningbo and Qingdao in eastern and northern China are reporting similar delays, Maersk added. 

Hapag-Lloyd said vessels are having to wait up to 80 hours to berth at Port Klang and 72 hours in Singapore. 

Ocean Network Express (ONE) confirmed that some ships operating trans-Pacific and intra-Asia services are having sailing schedules disrupted by the bad weather and port congestion. 

Highlighting the delays, ONE sailing schedules show the 10,000-TEU Seaspan Bellweather, operating the Asia-Latin America Express 3 service, was two days late at Ningbo. That lengthened to three days when the vessel berthed at Shanghai and then five days when the vessel arrived at the next call, Qingdao, this week. ONE attributed the delays to berth congestion at all three ports.