Honda Commemorates Millionth Car Export

A 2013 Accord Sedan became the one millionth Honda vehicle exported from the United States when it boarded a ship at the Port of Port Hueneme earlier this month.

The vehicle departed on a nearly 6,000-mile journey across the Pacific Ocean to Seoul, South Korea, on Dec. 12. The milestone came 25 years after the first US-made Honda automobile was exported overseas.

The millionth Honda US export vehicle, a silver Accord EX-L Sedan, rolled off the assembly line in Marysville, Ohio on Dec. 5, 2012 and was then transported to Port Hueneme in Ventura County, California for export overseas.

Honda currently exports automobiles to more than 40 countries from the US through seven port facilities in five states. The Port Hueneme facility, which Honda has been using for six years, is the company’s only one on the West Coast.

Honda currently exports automobiles to 49 countries outside North America, with total exports expected to reach nearly 100,000 Honda and Acura vehicles from the US by the end of 2012. The company says that within two years, it will export more vehicles built in its auto plants in North America than it imports from Japan. By 2014, the company says, it’s expected to increase automobile production capacity in North America from the current 1.63 million to 1.92 million units per year.

In coming years, the car company says, annual exports of Honda and Acura automobiles from the US are expected to surpass the company’s previous single-year export record of 105,511 vehicles, which was set in 1994.

Seattle Port Announces Commissioner Replacement Process

The Port of Seattle Commission has announced the outlines of the process and the timing for identifying and appointing a successor to fill the vacancy on the Commission that will be created when Commissioner Gael Tarleton resigns from the Commission Jan. 31, 2013.

Tarleton is resigning because on Nov. 6 she was elected to represent the 36th legislative district in the Washington State House of Representatives.

Under state law, the Commission will have 90 days to appoint a successor, with the decision made by majority vote at a Commission meeting. Tarleton’s successor will serve until the November 2013 general election when a candidate will be publicly elected to complete her term, which expires Dec. 31, 2015.

The process and proposed schedule announced by the Commission includes a Jan. 10, 2013 issuance of a notice of the vacancy. From this date, applicants will have 15 business days, excluding holidays, to submit their application materials to the Commission.

A town hall-style meeting at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport for interested individuals to ask questions about the appointment process will then be held Jan. 22, followed by a Feb. 1 deadline for applications, which then launches a 90-day window for a successor to be appointed.

“The Commission will alter the schedule if necessary to ensure we have a robust process,” Port of Seattle Commission President Tom Albro said, “but we believe our schedule allows opportunities for public comment and a thoughtful review of interested candidates.”

More information on the selection process is available as a PDF on the port’s website, and application materials can also be found on the site.

2013 WPPA Board President Chosen

Port of Vancouver USA Commissioner Jerry Oliver will serve as president of the Washington Public Ports Association (WPPA) Board of Trustees for 2013.

The WPPA, which promotes the interests of public ports through government relations and advocacy programs, was formed by the Washington State Legislature in 1961. Oliver was elected president on November 30 at the association’s annual membership meeting in Seattle, Washington.

“As a true believer that the Port of Vancouver plays a critical role in the economic well-being of my own community, I am honored to serve on the board of an organization that promotes the value of public ports throughout our state,” he said.

Oliver, who was elected to the Port of Vancouver Board of Commissioners in 2007, has been a member of the WPPA board for three years. He’s also the incoming president of the Port of Vancouver’s three-member Commission. His current six-year term on the board expires at the end of 2013.

Oliver holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Michigan. His career includes 20 years in the medical products distribution business as well as seven years in the financial brokerage business, according to the Port of Vancouver. Oliver also was self-employed for eight years when he worked in mid-market mergers and acquisitions. He retired from business in 2008.

LA Port Wins Communications Awards

The Port of Los Angeles has won 10 communications awards in an annual competition hosted by the American Association of Port Authorities.

The port’s 2011 Waterfront Summer Concert Series won top honors in the “excellence” category, and nine other programs – including the port’s “LAtitude” video e-news magazine, LA Waterfront Public Outreach Program and its School Boat Tour Program – were also recognized in various categories.

The AAPA is an alliance of more than 140 ports in the Western Hemisphere. AAPA Award entries are judged each year by transportation industry PR practitioners who are members of the Public Relations Society of America National Chapter in Washington DC.

The Port earned awards and recognition for a number of communications platforms that include:

LAtitude, the port’s e-news magazine; TradeConnect, a business and legislative outreach program that assists small and medium-sized businesses in establishing or increasing their importing and exporting potential; and the School Boat Tour Program, a free, educational boat tour program for fifth and sixth graders within the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Also recognized by the AAPA was the port’s Mariner’s Guide, pocket-sized handbook that provides tidal information for persons who pilot or operate ships and small boats in and around the port; the Portfolio TV show, a quarterly half-hour program that focuses on informing local audiences about port operations, community events, environmental developments and infrastructure projects, among other issues. It airs on regional cable TV networks.

Port of Anchorage Dock Construction Could Be Undone

Most of the work to build new dock areas at the Port of Anchorage as part of an expansion project could be undone because of improper construction, the city and port officials say.

The deconstruction option was one of three possibilities discussed by officials during a three-day session regarding the project.

The mid-December work session came weeks after a report found that three of four new sections built at the port were not constructed correctly, and due to shifting land, could fail during an earthquake.

The $2.2 million, 2,200-page sustainability study was conducted by engineering firm CH2M Hill on behalf of the US Maritime Administration (MARAD) and the US Army Corps of Engineers. It says the danger comes mainly from a foundation system called Open Cell Sheet Pile, or OCSP, where instead of building a traditional dock on piling, interlocking sheets of steel are hammered into the sea floor to form U-shaped cells, which are then backfilled with dirt and gravel.

Due to the problems, most construction of the project was halted in 2010.

The Corps requested the study be conducted after it assumed control of the Port of Anchorage expansion project from MARAD on May 31.

Officials from the port, Corps of Engineers and MARAD were present during the study session. One option discussed over the course of the three days was that two major port tenants, Horizon Lines and Totem Ocean Trailer Express (TOTE), would remain at their current berths and that a new deep water berth and a barge berth would be built after the damaged material now there is removed.

Another option was the temporary movement of TOTE and Horizon from their existing terminals while the old terminals are demolished and rebuilt. A third, so-called hybrid option would be to replace two of the existing terminals on the old dock and build a new deep-water berth.

The expansion, which has been in the works for more than a decade, was originally estimated to cost $360 million, and was supposed to be complete by 2011. Instead, cost estimates have jumped to more than $1 billion and continue to climb. A completion date is at least a decade away, according to port estimates.

Metro Vancouver Port Traffic Growth Continues

Canadian Port of Metro Vancouver’s monthly container volumes have been strong throughout 2012, and that trend continued in November 2012, with the facility’s terminals moving over 234,400 TEUs last month, raising the Canadian port’s calendar year-to-date total to just under 2.5 million TEUs.

The port continues to have a robust year so far when it comes to both full and empty container movement. The port saw almost 202,600 full TEUs in November, about 103,900 of which were inbound and over 98,700 outbound.

For the year to date, container terminals at the port have moved a total of 2.02 million full TEUs, with 1.24 million of those being imported into the country.

Regarding empty TEUs, Metro Vancouver saw about 31,700 last month, more than 21,700 of which were outbound and 10,000 inbound. Through the first 11 months of the calendar year, port terminals saw over 290,400 empty TEUs, with about 200,000 of those being shipped out of the country.

Metro Vancouver’s total TEU volume was up 8.5 percent in the first 11 months of 2012 compared to the same period in 2011, according to port data.

Port Metro Vancouver is the largest port by container traffic in Canada and fourth largest in North America, after the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach and New York/New Jersey.

Tacoma Port Continues Double Digit Monthly Growth

Port of Tacoma container volumes continued to see double-digit growth in November 2012, marking a 13 percent improvement year to date to over 1.5 million TEUs.

Tacoma terminals saw a total of 1.53 million TEUS through the first 11 months of the calendar year, a 13.3 percent jump from the 1.35 million moved during the same period last year.

The port says demand for auto parts, furniture, toys, tires and sporting goods helped drive full import container volumes up nearly 24 percent year to date through November to 545,242 TEUs. Meanwhile, agricultural products and such bulk commodities as scrap paper and wood in the rough helped export volumes improve 17 percent to 402,410 TEUs.

Last month saw a total of 147,565 TEUs travel through the port, a 9.5 percent increase from November 2011’s 134,000 TEUs. The largest portion of that amount was full inbound containers from overseas, of which the port saw more than 54,400 during the month, up from 51,300 in the same month last year.

The second-highest number of TEUs was in full outbound overseas containers; Tacoma terminals saw about 42,400 of them in November, up from just over 34,650 in November 2011. Overall, Tacoma moved about 947,650 containers to and from overseas locations during the first 11 months of 2012, 1 21 percent increase from the same period in 2011.