Peak season, for all practical purposes, is here. There are once again 25 or more container ships at anchor in San Pedro Bay off the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Rail lines UP and BNSF were so backed up that they recently throttled container flows from Southern California to Chicago.
With no end in sight, how can West Coast ports handle the ongoing flood of imports?
To answer that question, American Shipper interviewed Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, on Wednesday. Following is an edited version of that conversion:
AMERICAN SHIPPER: There’s a parade of ships now headed from Asia to California. With peak season cargo coming in and new trans-Pacific services and extra loaders, is there any way for Los Angeles to squeeze out more productivity on the land side and dig out of this? Or does normalcy have to wait for imports to abate?
SEROKA: “The railroads are full. The warehouses are full. Port terminals are full. Ships are coming in and waiting to get worked. The factories are behind in orders. This incredible demand has got everybody in the entire value chain just clipping out at levels we never could have imagined — and it’s still not enough.
“We’ve still got so much cargo coming in. We were on the phone with a big retailer this morning and they said that they’re still going to need another year to get inventories up to a level they think is appropriate.
“Something’s got to ease. We’ve got 23 vessels scheduled to come into both ports over the next three days. That’s pretty high. We’ve now got 25 ships at anchor for both ports, 17 of which are directed to LA.
“But, for example, if we suddenly got a break in the warehouse system and a bunch of cargo was pushed out after being put in 53-foot boxes, we could have an immediate release valve on these terminals. One overnight run of 60,000 containers makes us look very, very different tomorrow than we do right now.”
AMERICAN SHIPPER: There have been several times when the number of ships at anchor dropped by 10 or more over a single weekend. Is that part of the strategy?
SEROKA: “Yes, it has been preprogrammed and planned. One of the things that’s difficult is getting the trucker community aligned with those additional gates and work times. Because these guys and ladies have the 11-hour federal mandate of work plus extra rest time. So, we’ve got to be in real synchronicity with these folks to say, ‘Hey, look, we’re going to be able to move a ton of cargo out on Saturday, Saturday night, Sunday, Sunday night. Can you have the power available?’ And they may forgo a little bit of work on Thursday and Friday, for example.”
AMERICAN SHIPPER: You just mentioned warehouses as a possible release valve. You’re implying more can be done at warehouses productivity-wise?
SEROKA: “Absolutely. It works on either end. If ships slow down for a week coming in, we could push out some of this cargo. There would be a little bit of a flow issue to direct the trucks and trains, but at least it would put a dent into the anchorages. Conversely, a similar outcome — maybe even with faster results — would be at the warehouses. You’ve got 2 billion square feet of space. If you were suddenly able to push out 53-foot domestic boxes at an abnormal pace — because these guys are only open from 8 to 5 — but if you added night shifts and weekend shifts, we could really release the air out of these terminals and get this port in better shape to welcome that next vessel.”
AMERICAN SHIPPER: There has been a shortage of job applicants across the country, in many different industries. How much is this a factor, not just in the warehouses, but across the entire land-based logistics system?
SEROKA: “I’ll break it down into three areas. The ILWU [longshore union] rank and file has been on the job between five and a half and six days a week since the pandemic began. We’ve added about 1,000 longshoremen and women during this process and it could be more. The employers and the union have to agree on those numbers within the collective-bargaining agreement, but if we can get more workers out there, even better in my view.
“On the trucking side, we’ve got about 18,000 truckers registered individually to do business at this port, only half of which call at the port at least once a week. With these terminals super-full with containers, that slows down truck times. Because we’re not getting four turns a day, we’re only getting two, we need more drivers and you still have half the population you can recruit into this business. How quickly individual companies and independent contractors want to [resume work at the port] remains the question.
“On the third segment, the warehousing guys, that’s been hit or miss all throughout COVID. You’ve got physical distancing and the teams that work in warehouses are now smaller and working farther apart. With stimulus, some may have forgone working in warehouses because those checks took care of the needs of them and their families. Now bringing them back are things like rent abatements and eviction moratoriums and unemployment benefits starting to wane and expire. So, you may see more people in the [warehouse labor] market.”
AMERICAN SHIPPER: There have also been huge challenges on the rail side. You reported in mid-June that Los Angeles’ on-dock rail time was still 12 days, not far from its peak earlier in the year. Then, in July, UP suspended Southern California-Chicago service for a week and BNSF rationed service for two weeks. How has that affected the port?
SEROKA: “That was a very difficult decision — pausing trains from Los Angeles/Long Beach to Chicago — and I think it had to be done. I talk to the senior guys and ladies at both companies, regularly, if not daily. What I learned from UP was that at the time that decision was made, they had 25 miles worth of trains sitting outside of Joliet. Lo and behold, very shortly thereafter, BNSF had 22 miles of trains sitting outside that facility.
“They are facing some of the same difficulties that we do here in LA. Their dwell time for containers, once a train gets discharged, was three times as long as it used to be, pre-pandemic, pre-surge. The expectation is that their customers come in within the day and pick up their boxes. It was going to three-plus days. And their on-the-street dwell time [at warehouses] was up to eight days, very similar to ours. So, they’re not getting equipment back nearly fast enough. Their normal model is about two days’ street dwell.
“These guys were saying, ‘How many more trains can I put in there because the guys in Southern California are screaming we need more rail cars, engine power and crews to get the next ship’s cargoes out. If [equipment] is just sitting in Chicago or other locations, I can’t get those assets and crews back.’ [Pausing service] was a painful decision they had to make.
“Combined, about 15% of our cargo was paused for that point in time. So, it didn’t decimate us, but every container that doesn’t move out of the port creates more of a clog right here. We’re once again sitting at about 95-98% of our land usage capacity and 80% is considered full-throttle for us.”
AMERICAN SHIPPER: How has this emergency pause in service affected rail dwell time at the port?
SEROKA: “For the small snapshot in time that they went into this pause, it increased dwell times, as you could imagine, because you’ve got containers that are not moving out. So, right now, we’re sitting at 13.1 days rail dwell and that’s just off the peak that we witnessed back in February. But then we will see it slide as these Midwest trains start to be built and move out.
“What it did was help clear out Joliet to an extent where it’s now manageable [in terms of] the cargo they can put through their terminal — and that will accelerate trains moving out of here going to Chicago.”
AMERICAN SHIPPER: Looking at all that’s happened already in 2021 — from the rail situation to the anchorages and all the other issues — it has really been an incredible year.
SEROKA: “And the story still has not been finished yet.”
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