In the early 70's the ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach was tied up like that but it was because of a longshoremans strike. The entire port anchorage and all of the shallow water anchorages off Huntington Beach were full.
It is costing on average 40,000 dollars per day to have those ships parked like that. They have to keep their engines running burning fuel, plus hotel services, plus the costs of the crew's wages. This latter is really minor compared to the cost of a ship that is not sailing to the next port and handling cargo. Damn expensive wait.
They went on strike for more wages but they lost in the end. They were out for so long that even with the pay raise they lost money, because no matter how long they worked following the strike, they could not make up the lost wages.