Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Port of Seattle Monthly Traffic Still Falling


Containerized traffic at the Port of Seattle fell 0.8 percent last month compared with November 2010, according to newly released data. This makes the seventh straight month that traffic was down compared to the same month the year prior.

From May through September of this year, total traffic dropped by double digits each month compared with the same month the year before, before a dip of just 6.6 percent in October.

Relatively speaking, a 0.8 percent drop last month at the port could be seen as good news compared with most of the year. A total of 170,104 TEUs moved through the port in November, compared to 171,546 in 2010.

Imports rose 2.1 percent year-to-year last month, but it wasn’t enough to offset a downward trend for the year, as for the year-to-date, imports are down 8.8 percent compared with the same 11 months in 2010.

For the year to date, Seattle has seen 1.87 million containers so far; in 2010, 1.98 million containers traveled through the port during the first 11 months of the year.

The 1.8 percent year-to-year decrease is mainly due to a drop in exports, which fell 6.1 percent compared to November 2010 and have fallen 5.5 percent overall compared with the same 11 months last year.

By comparison, a total of 1.36 million cargo containers moved through Washington state’s second largest seaport, the Port of Tacoma, through the first 11 months of 2011. The number represented a 3.2 percent increase over the 1.32 million that passed through Tacoma docks during the same period last year.