Dive Brief:
-
East Coast ports have taken market share from West Coast ports, with their overall volume rising 6.7% in August, according to JOC.com, which compiles data collected via third-party sources and from sources within IHS Maritime & Trade.
-
West Coast ports saw 50.8% of total U.S. volume last month, down from 51% in July and from 53.5% in August of last year, according to JOC. The ports at Los Angeles and Long Beach last month together imported 732,992 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs), a standard measure for container cargo, down 4.3% year over year, according to numbers released by both ports. Long Beach’s volume fell 10.2% and Los Angeles' volume increased 0.87%.
-
The Port of Virginia, by contrast, handled 235,511 TEUs in August, up 7% year over year — the single busiest month in the port’s history. Rail units rose 20%, truck volume rose .4%, and volume at the Richmond Marine Terminal rose 33%. In Virginia, August marks the seventh consecutive month of TEU volumes exceeding 210,000 units, according to a press release.
Dive Insight:
The volume of imports at two of the country’s major ports fell overall in August, at a time when retailers are already leery of complications wrought by the bankruptcy of South Korean ocean shipper Hanjin.
Though many retailers have been actively working through bloated inventories, which would hit import volumes, the National Retail Federation earlier this week estimated the year-over-year August decrease would be closer to 0.4%. But the volumes entering Southern California were much lower, and the effect of Hanjin’s bankruptcy won’t even be reflected in ocean import volume reports until September, according to JOC.com, making this August slump even more worrying.
Some major East Coast ports did report strong volume upticks last month, however. In Virginia, imports rose more than 15% year over year, ahead of South Carolina at 7.2%. Even at the Southern California ports, August volumes were up more than 7% from 2014, when a labor dispute wreaked havoc. Many retailers also shifted their import activity away from West Coast ports during that time.
Still, overall import volume in August was robust. Los Angeles said that this August was its second busiest month in its history, and even Long Beach’s August was the third busiest month in its year so far, though that was in large part thanks to exports.
September volume is forecast at 1.62 million TEU, down 0.2 percent from last year; October at 1.63 million TEU, up 5.3 percent from last year; November at 1.53 million TEU, up 3.8 percent, and December at 1.49 million TEU, up 3.6 percent, according to the National Retail Federation and its monthly Global Port Tracker report, released Monday by Hackett Associates.
The NRF is downplaying Hanjin's expected impact moving forward. “Hanjin should not significantly affect volume for the month since alternative arrangements to unload those containers or shift cargo elsewhere should be dealt with by the time the numbers are tallied,” NRF Vice President for Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold said in a statement. “But millions of dollars worth of merchandise is in limbo at the moment, and retailers are working hard to make sure it ends up on store shelves in time for the holidays.”