Long Beach Cargo Volumes Rose in January 2013

Cargo volumes at the Port of Long Beach surged in January 2013, with 17.5 percent more containers being moved overall – including a 19.5 percent jump in imports and an 8.2 percent rise in exports – compared to the same month a year ago.

Port terminals in January moved 536,263 TESu. The number includes 273,918 TEUs of imports, the highest volume of import containers for a January since 2007, according to newly released port data. Exports rose to 126,714 TEUs, an 8.2 percent jump from 117,083.

Empties were up 23.1 percent, rising to 135,631 TEUs, from January 2011’s 110,216 containers. The port is attributing the surge in part to the upcoming Chinese New Year, also known as the Lunar New Year.

During the weeks leading up to the New Year, some West Coast ports typically see a rise in cargo traffic in the trans-Pacific trade. Retailers stock up on merchandise before factories in China and throughout Asia close down for the holiday. The 2013 Lunar New Year began Feb. 10.

Another event being given partial credit for the month-over-month cargo volume jump is that last year, Mediterranean Shipping Co. and CMA CGM, two of the largest ocean carriers in the world, established exclusive hubs at Long Beach, leaving the Port of Los Angeles behind.

For the fiscal year to date, Long beach has seen increases in all its major statistical cargo categories. Loaded outbound cargo is up 18.4 percent, loaded outbound has risen 12.3 percent and the number of empty containers shipped has jumped by 7.1 percent so far during FY 2012-13, which began last October.

For more details on the cargo numbers, visit www.polb.com/stats.

POLA Monthly Container Volumes Drop 4 Percent

January 2013 cargo volumes at the Port of Los Angeles decreased more than four percent compared to the same month in 2012, according to newly-released data, something the port attributes to a vessel service that shifted from LA to the adjoining Port of Long Beach.

The port’s volumes were down in every major statistical category compared to the same month last year, partially due to the move from Los Angeles to Long Beach in 2012 of a service line between ocean carriers MSC and CMA CGM.

Imports decreased 5.32 percent, from 356,394 TEUs in January 2012 to 337,428 TEUs this past January. Exports dropped 5.44 percent, falling from 168,427 TEUs in January 2012 to 159,257 TEUs last month.

Combined, total loaded imports and exports for January decreased 5.36 percent, from 524,821 TEUs last January to 496,685 TEUs in January 2013. Factoring in empties, which slipped .91 percent year over year, the overall January 2013 volume of 669,000 TEUs decreased 4.25 percent compared to January 2012’s 698,715 TEUs.

For the fiscal year, which began July 1, total volumes are down 2.78 percent, falling from 4.87 million TEUs the previous year to 4.73 million during the current one.

Current and past data container counts for the Port of Los Angeles may be found at:

http://www.portoflosangeles.org/maritime/stats.asp.

Port of Seattle Cargo Volumes Drop

Port of Seattle container terminals moved a total of 136,462 TEUs in January 2013, a drop of nearly 15 percent from the more than 160,400 shipped during same month the year before, according to newly released data from the port’s Marine Terminal Information System.

The port saw across the board decreases in all shipping categories, with the most pronounced being a 44 percent drop in empty foreign container imports. The port moved roughly 7,600 such containers last month, compared with about 13,800 in January 2012. Empty foreign container exports were down 15 percent compared with January 2012, falling to about 7,600 TEUs from nearly 9,000 containers the same month the year before.

Overall, Seattle terminals moved about 109,600 TEUs to and from international locations last month, a nearly 20 percent drop from January 2012’s roughly 136,800 units.

As far as full TEUs, the port saw 94,359 during the month, a more than 17 percent decline from the 114,010 moved in January 2012. Of the more than 94,300, about 57,600 were inbound foreign containers and 36,738 were outbound. The numbers represented drops of 14.3 percent and 21.5 percent respectively, from the full inbound and full outbound volumes the port saw during the same month in 2012.

Port Metro Vancouver: Exports Up, Imports Down

Canada’s largest seaport suffered a slight decline in import volumes last month compared to the same month in 2012, but it wasn’t enough to drag the port’s overall container numbers down into the red.

In recently released data, Port Metro Vancouver reported importing 133,727 TEUs during January, a slight decline of 1.5 percent from the 135,748 TEUs shipped during January 2012. The number of full containers was only down 0.5 percent for the month, but the number of empties declined from about 9,000 in January 2012 to 7,600 last month, a drop of almost 15 percent.

The news was much better when it came to exports, however: 92,238 total TEUs moved through Metro Vancouver during the month, a 5.8 percent month-over-month increase from January 2012’s 87,162. Of the exports, 76,516 were full, which was actually a decline of a tenth of a percent compared with January 2012. But the volume of empty TEU exports rose by 48.7 percent, from 10,576 to 15,723.

For January 2013 as a whole, Metro Vancouver saw 225,965 TEUs – 202,568 full and 23,397 empty – move through its terminals, a 1.4 increase from January 2012’s 222,910 TEUs.

Port of Portland Approves ICTSI Subsidy

Just a month after it approved a temporary container subsidy plan to boost business at its struggling Terminal 6 facility, the Port of Portland has sanctioned a subsidy for the terminal’s operator, ICTSI Oregon.

On a majority vote during its Feb. 13 meeting, the nine-member Port of Portland Commission authorized as much as $3.7 million in rent rebates to ICTSI, which operates Terminal 6 under a 25-year lease. The vote was 6-1, with one abstention and one board member was absent.

Commissioner Tom Chamberlain, president of Oregon AFL-CIO, was the abstaining member, while the lone vote against the subsidy was cast by Commissioner Bruce Holte, president of ILWU Local 8. In explaining his opposition to the rebate plan, Holte called ICTSI Oregon a “failed enterprise” that the port must “walk away” from.

No tax dollars are involved in the subsidy: the rent rebate, effective during the 2013 calendar year, comes directly from the $4.7 million in annual rent received from ICTSI Oregon, with the amount not to exceed $308,333 per month. The port says it intends the payments, which take the form of rent reductions, to be savings that ICTSI can pass on to shipping lines so the ocean carriers continue bringing vessels to Portland.

Commission President Jim Carter said the rebates are viewed as just a temporary measure.

“Moving forward, we must stay focused on long term solutions,” he said. “The end game is keeping the container terminal operating.”

The agreement requires that existing container services are retained and that the carriers call at the same frequency as during 2012. If there are changes in service levels during the rebate period, the port has the discretion to reduce payments in proportion to the service change. Also, if labor productivity improves, the port has the ability to decrease the rebate payments.

Under a similar rebate plan, which was approved on a 7-2 vote Jan. 9, a $10 per container subsidy is being given to carriers calling at the facility, with the amount to be doled out capped at $1 million. Like the newly approved rebate plan, the money comes from ICTSI’s rental payments.

“The container terminal has been a mission critical part of our marine operations and we are doing everything we can to ensure it remains that way,” Sebastian Degens, the Port of Portland’s general manager of marine and terminal business development, said. “This is a delicate and complicated phase of a relatively new terminal lease arrangement. It is in our shared interest to ensure it is successful and that our customers have certainty of continued, reliable service through Terminal 6.”