Tuesday, January 19, 2016

POLA Annual TEUs Fall Slightly

By Mark Edward Nero

The Port of Los Angeles moved a total of 8,160,457 TEUs in calendar year 2015, a decrease of 2.1 percent from the 8.34 million TEUs the port saw in 2014, but up from the 7.9 million TEUs shipped in 2013.

“I’m pleased that the Port of Los Angeles has surpassed the 8-million TEU threshold for the fifth time in our history,” Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka said in a prepared statement. “Despite the soft start to the year, our terminals, labor force and supply chain stakeholders rebounded strongly. With bigger ships and the ongoing work to increase supply chain efficiencies, we look forward to building on this momentum in 2016.”

In December, total cargo volumes were 626,276 TEUs, a decrease of 4.9 percent compared to the same period last year. December 2015 imports dropped 4.5 percent to 321,407 TEUs compared to the previous year. Exports fell 13.7 percent to 131,239 TEUs in December. A cargo terminal was offline for several weeks in December in order to install new software, which was the primary reason for the drop in December cargo.

For the fiscal year, which began July 1, cargo volumes are down about 0.7 percent, according to port data. Port terminals moved 4.25 million TEUs, compared to 4.28 million during the previous six-month period.

Current and past data container counts for the Port of Los Angeles may be found at: http://www.portoflosangeles.org/maritime/stats.asp