California's large ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach and
Oakland are well known for their container handling clout but the Golden State
also has a number of smaller ports that are efficient cargo handlers in their
own right, and many cater to the bulk, breakbulk and neo-bulk cargoes that the
bigger ports sometimes shun. These smaller gateways stretch from the natural
harbors of San Diego in the south to Humboldt Bay in the north, with a large
cluster of facilities, both privately and publicly owned, maintained within the
reaches of greater San Francisco Bay. It's worthwhile talking a look at these
ports and facilities to see how they assist the world's eighth largest economy
in handling its growing volume of imports and exports.
Port of San Diego
In Southern California, the ports of San Diego and Hueneme
act as "satellite ports" for the larger gateways of Los Angeles and
Long Beach within San Pedro Bay. San Diego is the only natural harbor of the
four and functions as the US Navy's largest base in the Pacific. However it is
also a large shipbuilding and repair center, and it still moves a considerable
amount of commercial cargo, making it California's fifth largest port by
tonnage when petroleum is not counted. Two large cargo terminals, Tenth Avenue
and National City, offer a total of 15 berths. Refrigerated produce and dry
bulks are handled at Tenth Avenue while National City specializes in autos,
lumber and project cargoes. The total amounts to about 1.8 million tons of
freight annually, including around 356,000 vehicles and over 100,000 TEUs of
containerized goods, principally bananas and other tropical produce.
The port also handles cruise ships but these have been
declining in number over the past several years because of the well publicized
narcotics problems in neighboring Mexico. Cruise ship calls, in fact, have
dropped from a peak of more than 250 in 2008 to fewer than 70 ships expected
this year.
Port of Hueneme
To the north, the Port of Hueneme handles cargoes similar to
those in San Diego – refrigerated produce and automobiles - but no dry bulks or
cruise ships. Although a long ocean pier was built at Hueneme in the late 1800s
to handle grain exports the port, as it stands today, was largely created
during World War II. It remains a Navy-controlled harbor, the only one between
San Diego and Puget Sound, but has also developed as a commercial gateway.
In 1977 Japan's Mazda Motors elected to use Hueneme as its
West Coast base for imported automobiles. Two years later Del Monte selected
the man-made harbor as its west coast importing and distribution hub for fruit
and produce. Since then other produce handlers, including NYKCool, Sunkist
Growers, Pacific Fruit and Chiquita, have moved fruit and produce through
Hueneme while auto brands have grown to include BMW, Mini Cooper, Roll Royce,
Mitsubishi, Suzuki, Land Rover, Jaguar, Volvo, Saab, Hyundai and Kia.
Owned and operated by the Oxnard Harbor District, Hueneme
currently handles about 1.4 million tons of cargo annually, including some
inbound liquid fertilizer, and also serves as a supply base for Southern
California's offshore oil industry.
San Francisco Bay Ports
Within San Francisco Bay the Port of Oakland now dominates
container traffic but there are several smaller ports in the greater Bay Area
as well as a large number of private terminals that handle bulk, breakbulk,
neo-bulk and heavylift cargoes. The Port of San Francisco itself, once the
leading port of the Pacific, handles very little general cargo these days,
amounting to just over 7,300 tons last year.
However, it has become a base for
aggregate imports and this commodity, destined for the local construction
trades and brought in by self-discharging ships, totals about 1.2 million tons
annually.
San Francisco also remains a cruise port, hosting from 60 to
80 vessel calls and 200,000 passengers annually. To better handle these ships
the new James R. Herman Cruise Terminal is nearing completion at Pier 27 and
will replace the port's aging Pier 35 structure by the end of the year.
Port of Redwood City
South of San Francisco the Port of Redwood City has also
become a base for imported aggregates and this trade now dominates the port's
tonnage figures although some scrap metal is exported and limited amounts of
bauxite and gypsum imported. Earlier this year the port completed a $17 million
wharf modernization program which saw a new 430-foot by 60-foot concrete
structure replace a wooden dock built during World War II. The new wharf has
been specifically sized to accommodate a conveyor and hopper system and is
being used to handle aggregates as well as other dry bulk commodities. Opened
as a commercial port in 1937, and substantially expanded during the war years,
Redwood City has been handling about 1.4 million tons of cargo a year moved by
an average of 50 deepsea ships and 25 barges.
Port of Richmond
In the northern reaches of San Francisco Bay the Port of
Richmond is situated next to one of the world's oldest and largest oil
refineries. Operated by Standard Oil, the refinery's import and export figures
are included with the port's, making Richmond the State of California's third
largest port in terms of overall tonnage, with more than 18 million tons of
liquid, general and dry bulk cargo moved annually. The port itself,
administered by the City of Richmond, contains five city-owned docks handling
about 255,000 tons of cargo annually, and ten privately-owned terminals. One of
the largest of the latter is the Levin-Richmond Terminal, which moves a wide
variety of bulks, including scrap metal, iron ore, petroleum coke and coal. It
also operates its own short line railroad which interchanges with two mainline
carriers. The port's city-owned Pt. Potrero Marine Terminal is the largest
import automobile facility on San Francisco Bay and handles Honda and Subaru automobiles.
Port of Benicia
To the east on Carquinez Strait the Port of Benicia,
formerly the US Army's Benicia Arsenal, features a single 2,401-foot-long
deepwater pier that can accommodate three vessels simultaneously. The pier, and
an adjoining 640 acres of storage area, is used by the Benicia Port Terminal
Company, an AMPORTS company, to handle General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, and
Toyota automobiles while the Valero Corporation makes use of a portion of the
pier to export bulk petroleum coke. Valera also maintains an adjacent tanker
berth that serves its Benicia oil refinery.
A number of private facilities are located across the
Strait, including the C&H Sugar docks at Crockett, while other
installations are located to the east at Pittsburg and Antioch, one of the
largest being the USS-POSCO complex at Pittsburg which handles steel coils.
Port of West Sacramento
Inland to the east, the ports of Sacramento and Stockton are
reached by dredged deepwater channels maintained at depths of 30 feet and 35
feet respectively. Sacramento, the capital of California, has been seeing fewer
ships each year because of its shallow channel, which restricts ship size as
well as the loads they can carry. In 2006 the City of West Sacramento assumed
responsibility for the port, after which it became known as the Port of West
Sacramento. Last year all remaining cargo operations, principally the export of
bulk and bagged rice and the import of dry and liquid fertilizers, were taken
over by Seattle-based SSA Marine under a long-term lease agreement. This has
seen the port's cargo volume stabilize at about 300,000 tons annually
Port of Stockton
The Port of Stockton, like Sacramento, serves California's
inland agricultural region and thus handles such commodities as rice, animal
feed and fertilizer. While Sacramento has berths for eight ships, Stockton can
berth up to 15 following its incorporation of the former Rough and Ready Island
Navy Base. This has also given it one of the largest land areas of any West
Coast port, with more than 4,000 acres either currently operational or
available for development.
Stockton's main imports are fertilizers and molasses, plus
some steel products, while major exports include rice, sulfur, iron ore and
coal. The latter two commodities have been coming in by rail from the Rocky
Mountains area for export to Asia and have built up to nearly 1 million tons
shipped annually. Last year a rail loop track was extended to allow the
handling of six unit trains weekly. This has helped Stockton draw in around 400
vessel calls each year moving just over 3 million tons of import and export
cargo.
Counting vessels drawn into San Francisco Bay by Stockton
and other small ports, as well as the large container ships that dock at
Oakland and the cruise liners calling at San Francisco, the Golden Gate sees an
average of 3,500 ships arrive each year.
Humboldt Bay
North of San Francisco Bay only one California commercial
port remains. This is the Port of Humboldt Bay, sometimes also called the Port
of Eureka, which lies about 100 miles south of the Oregon border. Not
discovered by navigators until 1806, the natural harbor has been used for
lumber exports since shortly after the California Gold Rush, reaching a peak
about 25 years ago. Although there are almost a dozen deepwater facilities
located within the harbor most have deteriorated since the lumber boom and only
a few remain serviceable today. In recent years log exporting has resumed at
the port and this sees about a ship a month handled, with around 350,000 tons
exported annually.
