South Californian ports report stagnant inbound box traffic
The volume of inbound loaded containers discharged in August in Los Angeles and Long Beach showed no growth when compared to same month a year ago, according to the ports’ statistics.
The port of Los Angeles reported that its traffic of loaded inbound boxes increased by 8 percent in August, to about 354,400 TEUs, from about 327,500 TEUs in August of 2002. However, this was offset by a 12-percent fall in inbound containers, to about 206,900 TEUs, at the neighboring port of Long Beach. The combined inbound traffic of the two ports decreased marginally in August, to about 561,300 TEUs, from 562,100 TEUs a year earlier.
The vast majority of inbound containers in Los Angeles and Long Beach are shipments from Asia.
The stagnation of the inbound port volumes appears to contradict recent reports from ocean carriers that their transpacific ships are sailing full from Asia despite the recent addition of vessel capacity. The slow volume may reflect a substantial shift of transpacific inbound cargoes to U.S. East Coast ports and the difficulty of comparing monthly statistics due to last year’s port strikes.
Including outbound boxes and empty containers, the total throughput of the port of Long Beach dropped by 9 percent in August, to about 390,700 TEUs, whereas Los Angeles handled a total of about 651,000 TEUs in the same month, an increase of 8 percent. The combined volume of the two ports amounted to 1.04 million TEUs in August, up just 1 percent from the 1.03 million TEUs handled in the same month last year.