Port of Long Beach

Funding from FEMA will help protect operations and infrastructure at the second-busiest U.S. container hub.

The second-busiest U.S. container gateway moved record levels of cargo in September and in the third quarter on diversions ahead of an East Coast work stoppage and continued demand for holiday merchandise.

The Port of Long Beach has $2.2 billion earmarked for accelerating zero-emission initiatives over the next decade.

A truck carrying lithium-ion batteries overturned and caught fire Thursday near the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

As eastbound import traffic continues to grow, Union Pacific announced surcharges for its premium EMP and UMAX services out of the Southern California gateway.

The outlook for supply chain congestion this fall led importers to move holiday goods earlier than usual through Long Beach, the second-busiest U.S. port.

Drayage carriers at the Port of Long Beach may be adding more internal combustion engine vehicles than zero-emission vehicles to prepare for California’s Advanced Clean Fleets rule. The Port of LA’s use of ZEVs is also low.

The CEO of the Port of Long Beach boss cited restocking ahead of the Lunar New Year as the driver for import growth in January.

Following 15 months of challenges, U.S. ports are once again experiencing substantial growth in inbound containers.

Shippers are reverting to pre-pandemic shipping patterns, which may exacerbate the next freight market shift.

The electric grid holds more potential for electric truck charging than utilities currently allow. A big rethink is under way.

Forum Mobility joins a growing number of startups planning multiple megawatt charging facilities serving California drayage.

Trucks are featured heavily in projects reaping $653 million worth of port infrastructure grants announced Friday by the Biden administration.

Now that port labor unrest is over, West Coast container terminals are starting to claw back some of their lost volumes.

“The table is set to scale up as demand increases,” said Port of LA Executive Director Gene Seroka.

Using water emitted from fuel cells for a car wash is part of Toyota’s first all-renewable-energy vehicle processing center.

Just as scaling McDonald’s was more about real estate than hamburgers, electric truck charging is as much about land as it is about the grid.

Other charging infrastructure startups have more resources but WattEV has an early advantage in making charging available.

“Patience is wearing thin. Neither side imagined it would take this long,” says the head of the Port of LA on dockworker contract talks.

This year’s peak season could see West Coast labor disruptions coincide with Panama Canal water levels impeding cargo flows to the East Coast.

Dockworkers who keep West Coast cargo flowing are highly paid. Their bid for even higher pay is starting to affect the cargo flow.

The dockworkers’ union and terminal employers are still sparring over wages and benefits more than a year after contract talks began.

The container shipping party is over — that’s old news. Yet headlines continue to focus on comparisons to the peak.

America’s imports are not signaling a recession, at least not yet. Inbound volumes are rising from the bottom.

Executive Director Mario Cordero says the Port of Long Beach is “ready for a rebound in retail.”

Although import volumes show signs of a nascent recovery, the inventory overhang remains daunting.

After labor unrest closed Los Angeles and Long Beach on Friday, ports on the East and Gulf coasts look even more attractive.

U.S. importers have forsaken their traditional gateway in Southern California. Many may be gone for good.

“We knew the port terminals, we understood their operations, but mostly we understood their systems and data. We thought we could be the bridge that wasn’t created before that could speak both parties’ languages and get containers in and out,” said BlueCargo co-founder and CEO Alexandra Griffon.

Port of Long Beach container volume plops

The Georgia Ports Authority said a 16% drop in imports year over year “was fueled in part by reduced orders in retail and manufacturing.”

Executive Director Mario Cordero said he is optimistic the Port of Long Beach will recapture market share.

What can be done to alleviate emissions and decarbonize transportation in the ports?

The 9,133,657 twenty-foot equivalent units the Port of Long Beach handled in 2022 were only 2.7% off the record-setting 2021.

Remaining queues of waiting ships are dwindling, another sign that supply chain pressure is winding down.

Container shipping lines are gradually getting their services back on schedule, but they still have a long way to go.

Containerized imports to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have now fallen well below pre-COVID levels.

Shippers and carriers are increasing the pressure on ports and other supply chain participants to roll out “green corridors” using digital technology.

Southern California’s container-ship logjam ends as congestion eases at East and Gulf Coast ports.

The head of Los Angeles’ port is on a worldwide sales blitz, trying to convince shippers and carriers to come back.

Container volumes were up year over year in Savannah and Charleston, while crude oil exports set a record in Corpus Christi.

Imports remain 7% higher than pre-pandemic levels, with volumes steadying last month after September’s plunge.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is awarding the Port of Long Beach a $30.1 million grant to replace diesel yard tractors with zero-emissions cargo-handling equipment.

Southern California ports are being hit by double-digit import drops as the COVID-19 cargo boom winds down.

Declining imports have led to fewer container ships waiting off ports, injecting more capacity into the market, a negative for spot rates.

A new law in California will restrict the imposition of detention and demurrage charges that can be levied in the state.

East and Gulf coast ports handled more volume than ever before in August, pulling far ahead of West Coast rivals.

Two zero-emission-vehicle initiatives were announced at a meeting of the Intermodal Association of North America, just about the time the state was releasing its Clean Fleet rules.

Executive Director Mario Cordero says the Port of Long Beach is “making great strides in reducing the number of ships queuing to enter the San Pedro Bay ports complex and quickly moving imports and empty containers out of the terminals.”

U.S. containerized imports are still near record highs, but not in Los Angeles, where they’ve fallen sharply.

The Georgia Ports Authority says the Navis system “eliminates data silos, improves velocity across our terminals and enables us to more easily integrate with our customers to provide the data and insights they need.”

California’s container-ship traffic jam is almost gone, replaced by stubbornly high backlogs off the East and Gulf coasts.

The Mojave Inland Port could reduce congestion at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Spot rates on most global shipping routes continue to fall. The trans-Atlantic market is the exception: It’s holding firm near its high.

U.S. imports accelerated in July, with inbound cargo from China reaching a year-to-date high, according to Descartes.

With East Coast ship queues high, port executive Gene Seroka says: “For cargo owners looking to rechart their course, come to Los Angeles.”

The drop in ships waiting off Southern California is deceiving. The number of ships off all three coasts is back to all-time highs.

Southern California ports can’t evacuate import containers fast enough. The backlog has yet again reached critical levels.

There were 125 container ships waiting offshore on Friday, including 36 off Savannah, 24 off Southern California and 20 each off Houston and New York.

The number of import containers sitting at LA/LB terminals for nine days or more has more than doubled since February.

America’s peak cargo importing season will start early this year, by the end of this month, says the Port of Los Angeles boss.

May was one of the busiest months in history for the container ports of Long Beach and Charleston.

Startup WattEV sees its Truck-as-a-Service startup as a modern day Pony Express with electric trucks being swapped instead of horses .

The number of container ships waiting off Los Angeles/Long Beach recently sank to 25, the lowest tally since July 2021.

Supply chain bottlenecks on the West Coast last year were evident in global port ranking data.

Safety stats show resilience despite aging ships, cut corners on maintenance and rising pressure on seafarers.

According to maritime expert John McCown, the U.S. ports with the strongest April performance were Charleston, South Carolina; Houston; and New York/New Jersey.

‘Right now, we don’t see a huge buildup of volumes because of the closedown in Shanghai,’ reports Maersk CEO Soren Skou.

CEO Brad Wright explains how Chunker’s short-term container storage model reduces risk for shippers.

The U.S. Maritime Administration issued a final environmental impact statement for the Pier B on-dock rail facility at Long Beach and approved the project.

Mario Cordero, Port of Long Beach executive director, says there have been “notable improvements across the supply chain,” but lockdowns in China could change that.

The debate heats up on whether this is the beginning of the end of container shipping’s bull run.

Dirty trucks will pay $10 per TEU in and out of the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports to raise money for zero-emission trucks and infrastructure.

Federal regulators will begin to assess how container lines are serving U.S. exporters.

California ports make progress on bottlenecks, but Chinese lockdowns could spur “hockey stick” import rise.

DOT is leading a freight data exchange pilot project that it envisions as a long-term effort to speed cargo flow and cut costs for consumers.

COVID lockdowns haven’t closed Chinese ports yet. If they do, U.S. importers face “shockwave” of higher rates and delays.

Liner company Zim expects to rake in a billion dollars more this year than in record-setting 2021.

There are now more container ships waiting off East and Gulf Coast ports than there are off Los Angeles/Long Beach.

“Efforts to successfully move aging cargo out of shipping terminals” improve the picture at California’s San Pedro Bay ports.

One-year agreement will allow for at least 20,000 boxes to be stored off-site, state says.

West Coast terminal operators could be taking advantage of supply chain disruptions by overcharging shippers for using night gates.

An internal process audit can be easier than you think, ships waiting for berths in San Pedro Bay have finally decreased, and Canada can’t quit with border issues.

The number of ships waiting off Los Angeles/Long Beach fell 23% over the past week.

In this exclusive interview with American Shipper, the port envoy to the White House Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force discusses the state of the ports, the challengers at hand and the outlook for the future.

Accusations fly as shipping lines rake in billions, but the numbers imply more carrier competition, not less.

Barring an economic downturn, U.S. demand could still be squeezing ports a year from now.

Despite the victory of saving Christmas, the congestion problems at the nation’s largest ports have not improved.

SoCal imports suffering multimonth slide, not because of falling demand, but because of supply chain bottlenecks.

Drivers are people who have needs and wants, goods from October are just now being unloaded at West Coast ports, and the FMSCA has a new deputy administrator.

“Historic, pandemic-induced import surge” drove record-smashing volume at the Port of Long Beach.

No letup yet: It’s taking even longer for Asian exports to get across Pacific to American buyers.

The finger-pointing of blame and the political promises and suggestions are not improving the flow of trade.

DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg touted holiday season wins at the ports of LA and Long Beach while addressing shipping-sector prices.

Popular interest in the supply chain may have faded, but the pileup of ships waiting offshore keeps growing.

How could the consensus — that container spot rates will remain extremely high — be wrong?

There has never been a year like this for container shipping. Here are the biggest stories of 2021.

After an exceptional year for ocean shipping, the data points to more action ahead in 2022.

Carriers and shippers are turning to East Coast ports as Los Angeles/Long Beach remains mired in congestion.

Port Hueneme is an example of a niche port that is attracting more container shipments because of bottlenecks at big seaports.