Overall container volumes at the Port of Oakland were down
last month from the same period last year, the sixth time this calendar year
that numbers were down from the corresponding month during the previous year.
The total volume of containers moved last month was nearly
four-and-a-half percent lower than in September 2011, according to newly
released port data.
Shipping terminals at California’s third-busiest port saw a
total of about 191,500 TEUs last month, a decrease of 4.4 percent from the
number Oakland moved during the same month in 2011.
The reason for the overall decline was a sizable drop in
imported and exported full containers. Although the number of empty TEUs that were
shipped during the month rose slightly year-over-year, it wasn’t enough to
counter the decline in full TEU exports.
The port moved just 65,425 full, imported TEUs during the
month, a decline of 6.9 percent compared with September 2011; it imported 75,691
full TEUs, which was a 5.7 percent year-over-year drop.
Although the 20,246 empty TEUs imported represented growth
from September 2011 numbers, the increase was just 0.5 percent. The number of
empty TEUs exported was also fairly flat; just over 30,100 empty containers
were shipped out from Oakland last month, representing a year-over-year
increase of 1.9 percent over September 2011. The volume does, however, continue
a trend of monthly increases in the empty exports category dating back to
April.
For the calendar year-to-date, Oakland has moved a grand
total of 1.74 million TEUs, a decline of 0.4 percent from the same nine-month
period in 2011, according to the data.
