The ports blamed the downturn on congestion and ILWU-PMA contract negotiations.
UPDATE: PierPass, whose members are the 13 container terminals in the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach said container volumes have rebounded this month. It said from March 2 through March 15, nearly 303,000 TEUs of import and export containers moved by truck into or out of the terminals, 46 percent more than the 207,000 from Feb. 2 through Feb. 15. The number does not include containers moving by rail.
“The terminals are intensely focused on returning to normal operations as quickly as possible,” said John Cushing, president of PierPass. “While much work remains to be done, we can report progress in accelerating cargo movement by mid-March.”
California ports handled less cargo in February than they did in the same month last year.
Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland — the largest container ports on the U.S. West Coast — all reported a downturn in volume, attributing the decline to congestion and reduced productivity at container terminals in the weeks leading up to the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and Pacific Maritime Association signing a tentative contract on Feb. 20.
Port executives say cargo handling has picked up since then, but there are still huge backlogs of vessels waiting to discharge and load containers.
On Tuesday morning, Kip Louttit, executive director of the Marine Exchange of Southern California, said there were 32 vessels, including 26 containerships, at anchor for congestion reasons outside the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
Sean Kelley, director of the vessel traffic service of the U.S. Coast Guard in San Francisco, said none of the eight ships anchored in the bay Tuesday afternoon were containerships and that he did not see any “vessels drifting offshore that are near our area.”
The Port of Los Angeles said in a statement its terminals handled 502,663 TEUs, including empty containers, in February, 10.2 percent fewer than in February 2014. Imports were down 10.7 percent to 254,225 TEUs in February 2015, while exports fell 10.3 percent to 131,806 TEUs. Empties were down 9 percent.
“Cargo flow has improved since the end of February and throughout March,” said Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka.
Cargo terminals in February at the Port of Long Beach moved 413,114 TEUs, 20.1 percent less than in same month last year. Imports were recorded at 204,462 TEUs, a 24.7 percent decrease. Exports fell 22.9 percent to 110,711 TEUs. Empty containers saw a decline of 3.9 percent to 97,941 TEUs. The port said the February decline was greater than the one seen in January, when year-over-year container volumes were down 18.8 percent.
The Port of Oakland said February cargo volumes this year were nearly 37 percent lower than in 2014. 35,923 TEUs of full containerized imports were handled in February, 39 percent fewer than in February 2014. Full export containers moving through the port in totaled 51,728 TEUs in February, also down 34 percent.
Empty containers moving into the port totaled 13,693 and empties leaving the port totaled 16,603 in February.
The Port of Oakland said Tuesday only three vessels were holding station in the Pacific Ocean, just beyond the Golden Gate Bridge, awaiting terminal berths. That’s a significant drop from the 20 vessels awaiting berths in mid-February, the port said.
A large part of the Oakland backlog resulted from severe congestion at Southern California ports. Late-arriving vessels from Los Angeles and Long Beach bunched up in Oakland, disrupting schedules and causing container yards to overflow. The port said it has now cleared out much of the cargo backlog, though some lingering cargo delays exist thanks to ships still stranded in Southern California.
In an interview last week, Chris Lytle, the executive director of the Port of Oakland, said he has been telling customers since the tentative ILWU-PMA labor agreement was signed Feb. 20 that the port should be back to normal in a two to three month time frame, but that because Oakland has been less distressed than Southern California ports it may return to normal sooner.
He said some of the reasons he predicts congestion will clear faster in Oakland than in Los Angeles and Long Beach “actually has some negatives for Oakland frankly, because what happened is many of the vessel strings were diverted.”
Lytle explained that ships were so delayed in Los Angeles and Long Beach that rather than coming to Oakland to discharge imports and load exports, they instead discharged all cargo in Southern California and skipped loading exports or empty containers from Northern California and went back to Asia in order to get their vessel strings back on a normal schedule.
When the contract was signed, he said Oakland’s two largest terminals — SSA Marine’s Oakland International Container Terminal and the Ports America terminal — were only at 50 percent and 60 percent of capacity, respectively, when the contract was signed.
“So you had the ability for us to right away once the labor agreement was signed or once it was agreed to, to be able to bring vessels in,” he said.
However, Oakland has since seen disruption due to labor issues — employers and shippers said last week that ILWU longshoremen in the port have engaged in illegal work stoppages despite the tentative contract agreement. On Thursday, the PMA said Local 10 of the ILWU has “repeatedly engaged in illegal work stoppages at the Port of Oakland.”
California ports see container volume drop
