Buenaventura port congestion has been in the headlines for months, with long queues, blockades and full yards. The works meant to fix it are moving ahead with concrete dates, but almost nobody puts them in one place. This article puts them together: what is being built, what is already being corrected at the yards, what is still missing and when it could arrive. Once the dates are on the table, you can decide what to do with your cargo.

The context matters. More than 36% of the country’s imports, in fact, depend on the port’s operation. Cargo also grew 16% to almost 24 million tons, and of the 130 kilometers of road between Buga and the port, 30 were still unfinished, with the first 10 as you approach Buenaventura being the most critical stretch. According to the Sociedad Portuaria Regional (the regional port company), there is no maritime congestion for container ships. In other words, the problem is on land.

What is already being built

On October 1, 2026, work began on the internal alternate road (vía alterna interna). It covers 10 kilometers: 3.5 of upgrades and 6.5 of new second carriageway, with a parking area for tractor-trailers. The Minister of Transport also mentioned a 20-hectare yard with room for about 350 tractor-trailers (mulas) and roughly two years to finish the dual carriageway.

That road is one section of the Buga-Buenaventura corridor, which shows 32.59% progress. Financial close for the last 35 kilometers was confirmed in 2025, and the planned completion date is February 2028. Since the project started in 2006, 2028 is the official target, not a guarantee.

The tunnels are the most delicate part. According to ANI, the national infrastructure agency, the project replaces the electromechanical equipment in the 17 existing tunnels, which add up to 9.3 kilometers, and also builds two new short tunnels of about 1.4 kilometers. The concessionaire estimated that the tunnel works would be in operation between late 2026 and early 2027. That is the company’s estimate, not a date set by ANI. Earlier, in early August, ANI and the concession opened almost 48 kilometers of rehabilitated road. In addition, on October 14 the minister reported that nine of the 21 functional units were unblocked, including the internal alternate road, and that the whole corridor is under construction.

What is already being corrected at the yards and the port

Operational measures are felt sooner than asphalt. For example, the government ordered continuous operation at container yards, the removal of empty containers from external depots and a daily record of movements on the Superintendence of Transport platform. The trucking association reported that empty containers’ time in port fell from 12 days in May to 8 in June.

After the August 10 earthquake, recovery has been uneven. In early September, container operations at SPRBUN had normalized, while TCBUEN still showed high yard utilization and restrictions on some empty container movements. Even so, the manager of the port company described operations as “flowing normally, but congested” because of the pending dual carriageway.

Dredging runs on a separate track

Today the channel is 12.5 meters deep in the inner bay and 13.5 in the outer bay. In March 2026, Invías, the national roads agency, presented the first-phase target: 16.5 and 17.5 meters. At that point the project was still in studies, environmental licensing and prior consultation (consulta previa), with the CONPES document pending, and no start date for the works had been published. Earlier dates had already slipped: in 2024 the plan was to tender by the end of 2025 and have the channel ready in the first half of 2027.

In short, this work determines how large the ships that arrive can be, not how long a truck takes to enter the port.

When Buenaventura port congestion could ease, according to the sources

No agency publishes a single normalization date. Instead, what exists are targets for each project:

• Existing and new tunnels: between late 2026 and early 2027, according to the concessionaire’s estimate.
• Internal alternate road with second carriageway: about two years from October 2026, according to the minister.
• Full Buga-Buenaventura dual carriageway: February 2028, a target set by ANI in 2025.
• Deepening dredge: no confirmed start date, because in March 2026 it was still in licensing and prior consultation.

In the meantime, which cargo can adapt to the market

Not every shipment can switch ports, and it shouldn’t. Three variables decide it: the cargo’s origin and/or final destination, how firm the delivery date is and which carrier the cargo is booked with.

If the cargo is headed to the Valle del Cauca, Buenaventura remains the logical choice because, of the 15.5 million tons moved out of Buenaventura in 2025, more than 7.6 million went to municipalities in the Valle.

Cargo going to or from Antioquia, the Coffee Region or Bogotá

On the other hand, the comparison changes. Puerto Antioquia opened on January 31, 2026, and CMA CGM added it to its PEX2 service with a first call scheduled for October 8, which adds only two transit days compared with Cartagena. The carrier estimates an average distance 43% shorter to Medellín and Bogotá than other northern terminals, and it also expects lower inland costs than through Buenaventura. Moreover, the port has contracts with Maersk, CMA CGM and MSC. After the earthquake, Atlantic coast operations were unaffected.

Still, the alternative is not free of friction: the trucking association identified 14 critical points on the road between the Aburrá Valley and Puerto Antioquia. For this reason, the decision is made with the specific cargo, not with averages. Once a shipment has room on those three variables, it moves from waiting to choosing.

If your cargo stays in Buenaventura

Fenix does not set shipping schedules, because they change with every blockade. The sector reported peaks from Thursday to Sunday and from Wednesday to Friday, with fewer trucks between 7:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. But in early September the corridor’s full nighttime closure between 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. was still in place, and those windows stopped being useful.

What stays stable is the way of operating. The recurring bottleneck is the appointments to return empty containers at one particular terminal, so it makes sense to coordinate the pickup of the full container and the return of the empty as a single operation, with documents ready before the vessel arrives. That daily coordination is part of the job of a freight forwarder present at the port.

Fenix has its own office in Buenaventura and also operates through Puerto Antioquia, Cartagena and Barranquilla, in FCL and LCL, for imports and exports. As a result, ports can be compared with your cargo on the table.

Choosing the right port for your next shipment

When people talk about cargo theft, most of us picture a truck stopped on the highway. There is another version that needs no weapons and no violence: someone poses as a real trucking company, gets the shipment assigned to them and drives off with the goods while the paperwork checks out. These are the so-called fake carriers.

How fake carriers operate

The International Union of Marine Insurance (IUMI) and the Transported Asset Protection Association (TAPA EMEA) warned a few months ago that these groups use front companies, the identities of legitimate firms, stolen credentials and forged documents. The goal is to be assigned a transport job through legitimate channels, show up for the cargo and vanish.

What makes it hard to spot is that everything looks normal. There is a transport order, documents and contact details, and there are even insurance certificates backing the supposed carrier. The weak point appears before the vehicle ever reaches the road, at the moment someone decides who gets the cargo.

Why fake carriers are on the rise

The fraud is growing in step with the digitalization of freight booking. Online platforms and load boards connect shippers, intermediaries and carriers quickly, which helps a lot during demand peaks or urgent dispatches. However, the same speed leaves less time to verify.

The techniques are simple. In Hungary, for example, the MKFE association warned about emails that imitated well-known companies by changing a single letter in the domain. In Spain, meanwhile, the industry reported that fake carriers try to pull the negotiation out of the platform’s chat and into WhatsApp or phone calls, where it is easier to apply pressure and harder to leave a trace.

What the numbers say

Germany and Spain are where the problem has been measured best, so their figures are the clearest reference.

Indicator	Figure	Country
Ghost carrier cases in 2022	80	Germany
Ghost carrier cases in 2024	266	Germany
Losses in the first half of 2025	About €17.5 million	Germany
Identity impersonation cases involving household appliances	42.9%	Spain

A case: the GPS that gave the gang away

In Cologne, Germany, a logistics operator lost a shipment worth about €125,000 that never reached its destination. Two weeks later, because it suspected the pattern would repeat, it placed a GPS tracker on the next load. That signal let police stop the truck, recover more than 200 pallets and arrest three people. The case backs up what experts keep saying: the goods are usually high value and easy to resell, such as electronics and consumer products.

Can it happen in Colombia?

We know of no public reports of this scheme in the country, but the conditions that make it possible are already here.

The first is how freight gets booked. Cargo transport in Colombia is now also arranged through digital platforms: one of them reports more than 2.1 million dispatches and 47,000 active drivers. That speed helps operations and, at the same time, leaves less time to verify who receives the cargo, which is exactly the gap fake carriers exploit.

The second is that impersonation fraud has already shown up in the region. In 2022, El Financiero documented cases in Mexico of impostors posing as experienced truckers, recommendation letters included, to get hired and then steal the cargo. It is a different variant from fake carriers, but it starts from the same idea: getting the goods handed over through the front door, without forcing anything.

The third is that the cargo stolen here is the same cargo fake carriers go after abroad. According to figures cited by Asopartes, Colombia recorded 163 land piracy cases in 2024 and 101 in 2025, and what criminals take most is tech products, home appliances and consumer goods, as well as tires and spare parts. In July 2026, for instance, on the Buenaventura-Bogotá corridor, police recovered a tractor-trailer carrying 495 computers worth more than COP 3.2 billion, and the case involved GPS signal jamming to avoid tracking.

Who gets the cargo: the decision that matters

Since those three pieces are already in place, the scheme can reach Colombia.

The Logistics World puts it well: the challenge builds up. On top of route, custody and tracking, there is one more decision to make, which is who gets the cargo. Therefore, anyone who books transport in a hurry, by email or WhatsApp and without validating, leaves open the same door that criminals are using in Europe.

Colombia has a control tool that helps a lot with that decision: the National Registry of Cargo Dispatches (RNDC, by its Spanish acronym). It lets users look up a driver by ID number and a vehicle by license plate. In addition, the shipper must verify and confirm the information the carrier registers. Used for real, and not as a formality, it is one of the most concrete defenses the sector has.

Warning signs

• A profile created only a few weeks ago, or an inactive company that suddenly shows a lot of activity.
• An email domain almost identical to the original, with one letter changed or added.
• Last-minute changes to the vehicle, plate, driver or delivery instructions.
• Pressure to close the deal over WhatsApp or by phone, outside the agreed channels.
• Willingness to accept almost any rate just to win the job.
• Contact details that do not match the ones already on file, even if the company name looks right.

Controls that reduce the risk

• Verify the carrier on every shipment, not just at onboarding, because a legitimate company’s details can be spoofed later.
• Confirm email and phone through an already known channel, especially if they changed.
• Cross-check the driver’s identity and the vehicle’s plate against what is registered in the RNDC.
• Validate insurance certificates directly with the insurer instead of relying on the document received.
• Use satellite tracking on high-value cargo and share the tracking with whoever is contracting.

Who verifies your carrier

Every link in a shipment adds a point of exposure: inland transport to the port, warehouses, subcontractors. When each one is booked by a different person, controls end up scattered and one is easy to skip. Verification on every service is what stops the fraud before the truck arrives to load.

How Fenix handles it

At Fenix, we bring that work under one roof. We coordinate the transport of your cargo and take care of verifying the carriers on every service, so you do not have to check emails, plates and drivers yourself.

Sources consulted

The Logistics World: Fake carriers engañan a la cadena logística y convierten confianza en riesgo

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trans.info: Ghost carriers cost Germany €17.5m in six months as freight scams surge

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trans.info: Un GPS destapa a falsos transportistas: tres detenidos en Colonia

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Infobae Movant: España alerta por el avance del robo de cargas mediante falsas identidades

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trans.info: Cuidado con los correos electrónicos falsos. Un error puede costarte toda la carga

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trans.info: Falsos subcontratistas en el transporte por carretera

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El Nuevo Siglo: Piratería terrestre afecta cadena de abastecimiento del país

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Infobae: Asopartes pide blindar carreteras ante robos de carga que golpean abastecimiento nacional

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El Financiero: Se roban la carga al suplantar la identidad de camioneros

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Portafolio: FletX, ecosistema digital colombiano que revoluciona el transporte de carga

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Tiba Group: Registro Nacional de Despachos de Carga (RNDC)

CMA CGM added Puerto Antioquia, in Turbo, to its PEX2 service. On October 9 the terminal announced that the direct route to Puerto Antioquia is now a weekly connection with the main ports in Asia, China included. The first vessel, the CMA CGM Cape Cod, was scheduled to arrive in Turbo on October 8.

How the service works

Vessels sail from ports such as Shanghai, Ningbo, Qingdao, Hong Kong and Busan, cross the Pacific, call at Panama and Cartagena, and arrive in Turbo. Transit takes 34 to 36 days, depending on the port of origin. The ships average 16,000 TEU and reach up to 366 meters in length. With this service, the terminal now has ten regular lines.

Direct does not mean nonstop

Several headlines describe the route as “nonstop,” but that is not accurate: the vessel stops at Lázaro Cárdenas, Panama and Cartagena before reaching Turbo. What is true is that the service is direct, because a container loaded in Asia and bound for Puerto Antioquia stays on the same vessel all the way to Turbo, without being unloaded at an intermediate port to wait for another ship. At those stops the vessel unloads and picks up cargo for other customers, so the 34 to 36 days already include them. Turbo comes right after Cartagena, and the vessel does not end its voyage there: it continues to Caucedo and Kingston.

Two more days at sea, less trucking

According to CMA CGM, reaching Turbo takes only two more days than reaching Cartagena. The carrier also estimates that the average distance to Medellín and Bogotá is 43% shorter than from other terminals in northern Colombia. However, that is the carrier’s estimate, not an independent measurement.

The math matters in Antioquia because, according to the terminal, between 20% and 22% of Colombia’s imports from Asia end up in the department, and Turbo sits about 290 kilometers from its center. Whether the extra two days at sea pay off depends on the total landed cost: ocean freight, terminal charges and inland transport. For now, there are no published rates to compare.

Who wins with the direct route to Puerto Antioquia

Importers with cargo bound for Antioquia benefit the most: they cut road distance and, according to CMA CGM, bookings to Puerto Antioquia get priority in space allocation. Bogotá is a different case. The carrier includes the capital in its distance comparison but does not detail the savings, so they will have to be measured case by case. Cargo headed to the Caribbean coast sees no change, since the vessel still calls at Cartagena.

Exporters, on the other hand, have no news yet. What has been published describes the connection from Asia to Colombia, and there is no information on conditions for exporting from Turbo.

What remains to be seen

It is a single service from a single carrier, so if the vessel runs late in Asia, Panama or Cartagena, the delay reaches Turbo. The first months will show whether the direct route to Puerto Antioquia keeps its weekly frequency and what rates are published for the full trip.

In the meantime, at Fenix we have offices in Medellín, Bogotá, Cartagena and Buenaventura, and we follow this route by comparing, shipment by shipment, entry through Cartagena versus Turbo for cargo bound for the interior.

Sources

• Container News: CMA CGM adds Puerto Antioquia to revamped PEX2 service
• El Colombiano: Puerto Antioquia estrena ruta marítima directa con Asia
• Nación Paisa: Puerto Antioquia estrena conexión marítima semanal con Asia
• La República: Puerto Antioquia tendrá nueva conexión semanal y directa con puertos de Asia

The Buenaventura per-ton charge is set at COP 4,235 under District Decree 0338 of August 26, 2026, issued by the city administration. It applies to every metric ton moved in heavy cargo vehicles to or from the district’s port terminals, and it will be adjusted each year with CPI. According to the decree, the revenue will fund mobility and infrastructure projects tied to heavy cargo traffic, including maintenance and repair of urban roads. The Ministry of Transport, the National Coffee Growers Federation, Fenavi (the poultry federation), Colfecar (the road cargo federation), Defencarga and Fedetranscol have already asked for a review. We could not find a confirmed start date.

What the Buenaventura per-ton charge adds to an operation

A tractor-trailer carrying 30 metric tons would pay COP 127,050 more per trip, according to Colfecar and Fedetranscol. For containers and coffee, these are the numbers at the same rate:

Cargo	Weight	Added charge
Tractor-trailer	30 metric tons	COP 127,050 per trip
20-foot container	20 metric tons	COP 84,700
20-foot container of coffee (275 bags of 70 kg)	19.25 metric tons	About COP 81,500
70 kg coffee bag	70 kg	About COP 296

The values in the table are estimates based on net weight and are not final figures. If the decree is applied to gross weight, the numbers go up slightly.

Per operation it is small. The total is another matter: Defencarga estimates that 1.6 million metric tons enter and leave through Buenaventura each month, which would mean about COP 7 billion (7,000 million pesos) a month and more than COP 79 billion a year for the sector.

It charges by weight, not by value

A flat rate per ton weighs more on cheap, heavy cargo. Bulk commodities are the clearest case. According to Fenavi, 3.07 million metric tons of yellow corn, soybeans and soybean meal came in through Buenaventura in 2025, worth US$880 million, or roughly US$287 per ton (our calculation from its figures). Applied to that volume, the charge would have added more than COP 13 billion.

That supply chain also has few immediate alternatives. In 2025, 74.3% of imports of those raw materials bound for Valle del Cauca and Cauca arrived through Buenaventura, according to Fenavi. The poultry sector in the southwest is the one closest to the surcharge.

Coffee is in a different position. The Coffee Growers Federation reports that 60.2% of 2026 exports have left through this port, and it describes the charge as added pressure on export costs. Per bag it comes to about COP 296, which a product of that value absorbs without difficulty. For anyone exporting or importing high-value containerized cargo, the direct effect is just as small.

The cost that matters most is not in the decree

Colfecar counted 17 blockades on the road to Buenaventura between January and May 2026, and in February traffic jams of up to 25 kilometers were reported on the approach to the port. Fenavi places the main risk for Valle producers in the loss of corridor reliability, more than in the value of the charge.

Who pays first

The trucking company pays first, and whether it reaches the client depends on how the inland freight was agreed. With a fixed annual rate, absorbing the charge strains the contract. With itemized charges, passing it on is more direct. It is likely that carriers will try to reflect it in their rates, especially since Colfecar has already pointed to possible duplication with the Loboguerrero toll and the national surtax on ACPM diesel, both of which also fund roads.

What remains unresolved

• The start date is not confirmed. Colfecar asked to suspend collection while a consultation panel is set up and the decree is reviewed.
• Colfecar also asked for the 2024 technical, financial and mobility study, and for an explanation of why, if the goal is congestion, the charge is calculated by tons.
• The federation noted that the main routes belong to the national government (ANI and Invías) and that access to Aguadulce falls under the Valle del Cauca governorate, so using district funds there would require specific legal instruments.
• Senator Christian Garcés called the decree possibly illegal and said his legal team is reviewing it.

Will cargo shift?

Fenavi warns that adding costs may encourage cargo to move to other ports. Buenaventura has already lost ground: its share of yellow corn, soybean and soybean meal imports fell from 53% in 2011 to about 32% in 2025.

Caribbean ports would be the natural candidates to absorb volume. But for cargo bound for the southwest, the inland trip from there is considerably longer, and a surcharge of COP 4,235 per ton is unlikely to offset that on its own. What can move routing decisions is the combination of the charge, blockades and uncertainty that Fenavi describes. From our offices in Buenaventura and Cartagena, we are watching closely for any change.

At Fenix we are following the start date, any suspension, and how carriers adjust their inland rates. Based on what has been published so far, the Buenaventura per-ton charge adds little per operation. The numbers that change a routing decision are still the ones that measure time.

Sources

• El Colombiano: polémica en puerto de Buenaventura por nuevo cobro de $4.235 por tonelada (in Spanish)
• El País: crece rechazo a nuevo cobro para el transporte de carga en Buenaventura (in Spanish)
• Vanguardia: Fenavi alerta por nuevo cobro a la carga que se movilice por Buenaventura (in Spanish)
• La República: Colfecar advirtió que en el año ya van 17 bloqueos en vía a Buenaventura (in Spanish)
• La República: hay trancones de tractomulas de hasta 25 km para entrar al puerto de Buenaventura (in Spanish)

The shipping industry is weighing another jump in vessel size. After settling on 24,000 TEUs as the benchmark for intercontinental routes, several leading carriers are now looking at 27,000 TEU ships, a class larger still. China already proved the jump is technically feasible. In 2024 it unveiled a 27,500 TEU design with dual-fuel LNG propulsion, with approval in principle from classification society DNV. The ship, however, was never built. The motivation is purely financial. Spreading fuel, crew and insurance costs across more containers per voyage lowers the cost per box. That math pushes major operators to keep pace. The problem is that no one yet has anywhere to dock a ship that size.

What 27,000 TEU ships demand on land

A vessel of that scale needs drafts and dredging that very few ports in the world currently have. It also requires cranes with a vertical and horizontal reach that most terminals lack. The unload is so massive and simultaneous that it saturates container yards and jams rail and road access the moment the ship docks. There is also a risk that used to be spread across several smaller vessels. Maneuvering a giant like this through a narrow channel or in bad weather concentrates an enormous insured value in a single voyage. A minor accident can block a strategic route or shut down an entire terminal for days.

Fewer capable ports, more concentration in fewer hubs

The direct consequence is that the list of ports able to receive these vessels shrinks even further. It is already short today with the 24,000 TEU class. That concentrates intercontinental traffic in a handful of hubs. From there, cargo moves to the rest of the world on smaller ships, via transshipment. Ports that manage to invest in draft and cranes cement their role as a regional node. They capture traffic that used to be spread across more terminals. Those that cannot fall permanently into the role of feeder port, dependent on whatever connection the nearest hub offers. Maersk and MSC have spent years consolidating ownership of those terminals and feeder fleets. That gives them additional control over the final leg of the chain, something that carriers without that integration do not have.

What this means for Colombian foreign trade

No Colombian port will ever receive one of these 27,000 TEU ships, and that was never the relevant question. What matters is something else: cargo moving through Cartagena, Buenaventura or any other national port increasingly depends on a handful of regional hubs. They are the only ones capable of handling this new generation of vessels. The fewer hubs remain in the equation, the fewer connection alternatives that cargo has. If one of those nodes gets congested, raises its handling fees or loses a call, that cargo is left with no nearby alternative. Carriers gain efficiency on the main trunk route, moving more containers per voyage between major ports. That efficiency does not automatically translate into the same thing for Colombian importers and exporters. Their cargo still depends on a transshipment leg that keeps concentrating in fewer hands.

Fenix tracks these carrier scale decisions closely. They end up defining, months or years ahead of time, which transshipment routes will remain viable. They also determine which routes will fall behind for cargo moving to and from Colombia.

Running a truck in Colombia cost 6.07% more in August 2026 than a year earlier, according to DANE’s road freight cost index. DANE is the national statistics agency, and the index tracks what it costs to operate a cargo vehicle: driver, tolls, fuel and maintenance. The index is up 5.62% so far this year, and transport is the largest component of logistics cost in Colombia.

That increase lands on an already high base. The most recent national measurement of logistics cost in Colombia is the National Logistics Survey from DNP, the national planning department, with 2024 data. Of every 100 pesos a company bills, 15.6 go to logistics: moving goods, storing them and holding inventory.

Logistics cost in Colombia has come down, but it is still far from the target

Seen as a series, the figure tells a less straightforward story:

• 2020: 12.6%
• 2022: 17.9%
• 2024: 15.6%

The country sits 3 points above its 2020 level and 5.6 points above its 10% target.

Against other economies, the gap is close to two to one. According to figures cited by El Tiempo, the average for the OECD, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, a group made up mostly of developed economies, is 8%. The World Bank puts the global average between 11% and 13%. For an exporter, that gap ends up in the price it competes at in the destination market. For an importer, it ends up in the landed cost of what it sells locally.

Where the spending is concentrated

Component	Share of logistics cost (2024)
Transport	44.5%
Storage	22.4%
Inventory	17.7%

Together they add up to about 85%.

Applying that 44.5% to the overall 15.6% gives roughly 7 pesos of every 100 a company bills going to transport. On its own, that figure comes close to the 8% that all logistics costs on average in the OECD. It is a rough calculation, because it depends on how the survey builds each base, but it shows where the gap lies.

What got more expensive in 2026

DANE’s index breaks down the August annual increase like this:

• Driver and helper labor: around 15% a year, the component that pushes the index the most.
• Fixed costs and tolls: 7.33% versus August 2025.
• Fuel: 6.17%.
• Parts and maintenance: 3.69%.
• Supplies: 1.12%.

An increase driven by wages, tolls and fixed costs tends to stick, unlike one driven by fuel, which moves up and down with the market. In August the index fell 0.11% from July, a small breather that does not change the direction of the year.

Every hour of waiting has a price too

Colombia’s Ministry of Transport reported that each additional hour of loading and unloading raises costs by 7.9%, and that the hourly operating cost rose between 21% and 30% in January and February, mostly because of fixed costs.

For importers and exporters, the time a truck waits at a port gate or a warehouse gets billed. Companies that schedule their appointments and docks well pay less for the same route. Those with slow operations end up paying part of the freight in waiting time.

SICE-TAC now covers empty containers and light cargo

In May the Ministry of Transport issued resolution 20263040018445, which updated SICE-TAC, the system that calculates efficient road freight costs. The update added costs for empty containers and brought in light cargo vehicles, from 3,500 to 7,500 kg, with a three-month transition starting in June.

For foreign trade, the empty container matters because moving it back now has a reference cost. Light cargo vehicles are also the ones that usually handle final distribution of imported goods.

Who feels the increase most

The hit is not evenly spread. Companies that produce in the interior and haul their goods to the ports carry the full cost, and that spending cuts into their margin or raises the price of what they sell abroad. Exporters with plants near the coast have a relative advantage, because their overland leg is shorter.

Importers bringing cargo to Bogotá, Medellín or other inland cities pay that same leg in the opposite direction. In our view, the weight depends on the value of the cargo. A container of high-value goods spreads the freight across the final price. Bulky, low-value cargo, such as bulk inputs or raw materials, feels it far more.

A supply chain that depends on the road

Concentrating freight transport on highways exposes supply chains to road closures, weather problems and swings in fuel prices. Analdex, the national foreign trade association, has long pushed for multimodal transport, better infrastructure and more security on road corridors.

Beyond the rate, the cost of the road also lies in uncertainty. When transit times vary, companies hold more inventory and more storage space to cover themselves. Those two items add up to about 40% of logistics cost in Colombia, so part of what shows up as warehouse and inventory spending starts on the road.

Changing transport mode means repeating procedures across agencies

Moving cargo by rail, river, sea or air instead of only by road is the most cited way out of truck dependence. The obstacle, according to an analysis by an international trade lecturer, is the lack of interoperability among the tax and customs authority (DIAN), the agricultural health agency (ICA), the food and drug regulator (Invima) and the police, which means some procedures have to be repeated when cargo switches mode.

If every change of mode restarts the paperwork, the freight savings get lost in time. Interoperability among agencies weighs as much on cost as the condition of the roads.

What we are watching

From our offices in Medellín, Bogotá, Cartagena and Buenaventura we see the cargo’s full route, from the interior to the port and back. Three things will shape what comes next: whether the August breather in DANE’s index holds, how the expanded SICE-TAC shows up in freight rates, and what the 2026 National Logistics Survey, expected around the end of 2027, shows about whether logistics cost in Colombia stays below the 17.9% of 2022.

September brought a clear signal for the Suez Canal: 27% of Asia-Europe capacity went back to using it instead of routing around Africa, according to Sea-Intelligence’s latest Sunday Spotlight report. Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd, MSC and CMA CGM have already reactivated several of their main services on the route. The result already shows in hard numbers: Indian cargo arriving at the Port of Savannah, in the United States, now takes 10 to 14 days less than it did a few months ago.

That 27% doesn’t tell the whole story, though. Behind the average is a race with some clear winners and others still waiting their turn.

Why the return to the Suez Canal isn’t even across the board

The Mediterranean is leading the return by a wide margin: 57% of its scheduled capacity already sails through the Red Sea. Ships departing from northern Europe are only at 27%. The reason isn’t commercial but operational: carriers benefit from repositioning vessels returning from the Mediterranean first, which recovers capacity in Asia faster without yet putting their main northern European services at risk.

Direction of travel matters too. On the Asia-to-Europe leg, the share moving through Suez stayed flat at 13% to 25%, essentially unchanged from August. In the opposite direction, from Europe to Asia, it climbed from a range of 18% to 26% in August to 25% to 47% in September. Carriers shipping out of Europe are regaining ground considerably faster than those loading in Asia.

Doing more with fewer ships

One effect rarely makes the headlines: shortening the route lets a carrier keep the same weekly frequency with fewer ships. Each vessel completes more round trips in the same amount of time, freeing up tonnage without the service losing coverage.

Who’s seeing the game change

If your cargo moves through Algeciras, Valencia or Barcelona, in the Mediterranean, it’s already gaining transit days and more predictability than cargo depending on Rotterdam or Hamburg, in northern Europe, where recovery still hasn’t passed 27%. For a Colombian importer transshipping Asian goods through a Mediterranean hub before reaching Cartagena or Buenaventura, that 30-point gap already shows up as less inventory time in transit.

Shippers moving Indian cargo to the US East Coast are capturing the gain too, with that 10-to-14-day cut in transit time to Savannah. Kevin Price, president of Georgia Ports, welcomed the improvement because it shortens delivery and reduces what importers pay in storage. Flavio Batista, commercial director for the Georgia ports authority, went further, saying carriers that bet on diversifying production toward Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent are now cashing in on that bet, with shorter routes and more predictable supply chains.

Cargo that hasn’t seen the same relief is whatever depends on services still anchored to northern Europe, where the Suez share sits at 27%, or on itineraries where carriers keep prioritizing security over speed. That cargo keeps paying, in days and in fuel, for the detour around the Cape of Good Hope.

Why it’s too early to call this normal

73% of Asia-Europe capacity is still avoiding the Suez Canal. Every carrier is deciding service by service, based on direction, cargo type and risk exposure, with no single standard applying across the board. New tensions in Bab el-Mandeb are adding to the picture right now, along with calls to reinforce naval presence in the area, a factor that could slow or reverse the trend as quickly as it started.

If the trend holds, shorter distances should keep freeing up capacity and lowering fuel consumption, two variables that eventually feed into freight rates. But the market has learned, since the Red Sea crisis began, that none of this moves in a straight line. At Fenix we track each service closely before translating any of this into how we plan our clients’ shipments.

On September 28, Colombia’s Foreign Ministry sent the UAE and Singapore trade agreements to Congress, along with an update to the Pacific Alliance rules. All three were signed years ago and never put into force. None of them applies today. Before they do, each must go through Congress and the Constitutional Court, and that last filter has already struck down the Singapore agreement once.

The UAE agreement: the one with the most products defined

The CEPA, signed in April 2024, is Colombia’s first agreement with an Arab country. Once in force, 85% of Colombian products will enter the UAE tariff-free. The Trade Ministry cited sweet biscuits, waffles, medicines, ceramics and household appliances as examples. Another 13% will see tariffs cut gradually over five years.

Each percentage is the share of products that gets that treatment:

Who sells to whom	Who pays the tariff	Zero tariff from day one	Tariff that falls in stages
Colombian companies selling in the UAE	The buyer in the UAE	85% of products	13% of products, over five years
UAE companies selling in Colombia	The importer in Colombia	63% of products	37% of products, over up to 12 years

Oils and sugar stay protected under the price band system.

Trade today is small. In 2023 Colombia sold the UAE US$34.3 million in non-mining goods, and its main exports there are gold, flowers, emeralds, vegetables and coffee. What comes into Colombia is mostly cars, plastics and glass.

• Exporters of biscuits, waffles, medicines or ceramics: they win. Their product is on the zero-tariff list and there is almost no Colombian competition in that market.
• Importers of glass, plastics or vehicles from the UAE: they win, but the pace depends on the tariff line. If it falls in the 63%, the cut is immediate. If it falls in the 37%, it can take up to 12 years.
• Colombian glass and plastics producers: they lose. They compete with those imports and, on lines with an immediate cut, zero-tariff competition starts the day the agreement takes effect.
• Importers of oils and sugar: almost nothing changes, because of the price band.

Singapore: an FTA that Chile and Peru already use

The FTA between Singapore and the Pacific Alliance (Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru) was signed in January 2022 in Bahía Málaga. It removes most tariffs and covers investment, e-commerce and maritime transport. The sources consulted do not include a product list. Colombia’s Foreign Ministry highlights the potential for agricultural and agro-industrial products.

Colombia’s Congress approved it in January 2023, and the Constitutional Court struck that law down in October of the same year. According to Cambio Colombia, Chile and Peru have had it in force since May 2025. Colombia and Mexico remain outside.

• Importers of goods made in Singapore: they win once the treaty takes effect, because it removes most tariffs.
• Agro-industrial exporters: there is an opportunity, but still no product list and no date.

The third bill: rules of origin

The Third Amending Protocol updates the base text of the Pacific Alliance. It defines the Associate State status, which Singapore would hold, and introduces origin cumulation. In general terms, it lets inputs from a partner country count toward meeting a product’s rule of origin.

This is the least discussed of the three bills and the one that matters most to manufacturers.

When the UAE and Singapore trade agreements would apply

There is no date. The bills still need debate in the Second Committees of the Senate and the House, and review by the Constitutional Court. Only when the implementation text is published will it be clear which phase-out group each product falls into.

Fenix’s read

A zero tariff removes one cost and leaves distance and transit time untouched. The first beneficiaries toward the UAE would be high value-per-kilo products or goods that already travel by air, such as flowers and fresh fruit. With low initial volumes, consolidated cargo fits better than a full container. The preference is claimed with proof of origin, so the paperwork gets settled before shipment.

Toward Asia-Pacific, the Pacific route gains weight, and from Buenaventura Fenix follows that route closely, along with every stage of the process.

El Niño shows up every two to seven years, on an irregular cycle. When it does, it warms the Pacific and fuels more typhoons than usual. 2026 is one of those years.

NOAA (the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) put the odds at 69% that this would be the most intense El Niño on record, with its peak expected in November. The closest precedent is 2015, also a strong El Niño year.

Shanghai and Ningbo-Zhoushan were hit by three typhoons in under two months. Bavi made landfall between July 11 and 13. Dolphin reached Zhejiang on August 9 with winds of 151 km/h and shut down Yangshan and Ningbo-Zhoushan. Saudel struck again on August 27 and 28, with the same intensity, between Xiangshan and Fuqing.

The numbers behind the closures

Before Dolphin, Shanghai already had delays of 4.4 to 8 days. Ningbo’s yard was running at 90% to 98% occupancy. After Saudel, the delay climbed to 8-9.5 days, with more than 139 container ships anchored and waiting for a berth.

What typhoons in China mean for importers

Three concrete effects:

• More variability in transit times, even on bookings made well in advance.
• Upward pressure on Asia-South America freight rates, as carriers have less available space when they skip calls or cancel sailings.
• Higher odds of extra delay at transshipment hubs like Singapore, Busan or Manila, where much of the cargo bound for Colombia connects.

What it means for exporters shipping from Colombia

Empty containers that normally return to South America to load exports depend on carriers closing their rotation in China without setbacks. A ship anchored for nine days waiting to berth does not free up that equipment in time. This is already reducing empty container availability in the region and rerouting itineraries that affect cargo such as soybeans, iron ore and copper from other South American countries. A Colombian exporter who needs a container for their next shipment to Asia is competing for the same scarce equipment.

What comes next

At Fenix we are tracking port behavior on this route over the coming weeks.

Port congestion is back at a level not seen since the pandemic. Linerlytica counts 4.3 million TEU waiting to berth at ports around the world, an all-time high in volume that leaves behind the roughly 4 million of 2022. One nuance usually gets lost in the headlines: that figure equals 12.6% of the global container fleet, still below the 15.7% that was tied up back then. This is not a carbon copy of 2022, and the hit to anyone moving cargo does not land where you would expect.

What weighs most today does not show up in the count of stranded boxes. It shows up on the calendar.

Indicator	Figure	Source
TEU waiting for a berth	4.3 million (record)	Linerlytica
Share of the global fleet	12.6% (15.7% in 2022)	Linerlytica
Schedule reliability (July)	56.4%	Sea-Intelligence
Average delay per call	over 5 days	Sea-Intelligence
Waiting times vs. 2019	almost double	Drewry

Where port congestion is concentrated right now

The epicenter is Asia. Shanghai alone holds more than 1.5 million TEU at anchor, with Singapore, Busan and Colombo showing queues that will not clear; Mumbai has the worst ratio of waiting ships to berth capacity. The build-up comes from several factors that hit almost at once: the typhoons that battered the Chinese coast, the diversions still routing around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid the Red Sea, and the draft restrictions at the Panama Canal, which cut daily transits and stretch schedules.

Reliability broke, and that is the cost no one sees

The most uncomfortable figure is not how many ships are waiting, but how far the clock has slipped. Schedule reliability fell below 60% (56.4% in July, according to Sea-Intelligence), and the average delay per call already tops five days. Drewry estimates that vessel waiting times have roughly doubled compared with 2019. The practical consequence is direct: the arrival date the schedule promises stopped being useful for planning production, dispatches or sales. Anyone planning against that theoretical date ends up planning against a number that no longer holds.

Why Colombia feels it magnified

The country rarely gets direct services from Asia. Colombian cargo travels connected, and that connection happens at the same hubs that are saturated today. A ship that arrives late in Shanghai or Singapore does not just lose its berth window, it can also miss the connection carrying the container toward us, and then the cargo waits for the next vessel. That jump of days drags through transshipment to Cartagena on the Caribbean or Buenaventura on the Pacific, and from there to the importer’s warehouse. The jam starts an ocean away and lands on the agenda of a client in Medellín or Bogotá.

Who wins and who loses

• The importer running tight inventory is the most exposed. Every arrival outside the window ties up working capital in longer transits and opens the risk of a stockout right when there is the least room to maneuver.
• The perishable exporter plays at a double disadvantage. Coffee, flowers and bananas travel against the clock, and roll-overs (shipments the carrier pushes to the next vessel for lack of space) punish sensitive cargo more than any other. When space is scarce, the shipper with steady volume and a firm contract keeps its slot on board; the occasional one goes to the back of the line.
• Carriers, for now, are holding rates that would be lower without this congestion. And terminals and real-time visibility platforms are gaining ground, because in a market where the schedule lies, knowing where each ship actually is has come to matter as much as the freight rate.

The backdrop the industry itself is starting to admit

There is a shift in tone worth noting. PortXchange, one of the platforms that monitors port traffic, has been pointing out that much of this backlog is not explained by weather or politics, but by decisions made late and with poor coordination among carriers, ports, terminals and forwarders. The underlying read is that unpredictability has stopped being a passing anomaly and settled in as a market condition, at least while this cycle lasts.

For Colombian foreign trade, that reshuffles the priorities. The freight rate is the visible part and has already had its own analysis; what defines the real cost of importing and exporting today is the gap between what the paper promises and what happens at the dock. At Fenix we track how routes, connections and capacity behave so we can get ahead of that gap in each client’s operation, because reading in time where port congestion is heading is what lets you respond with room to spare while everyone else reacts on the fly.