WASHINGTON: Imports declined at the Port of Oakland in October, the second major seaport to report a lackluster month during what tends to be the busy pre-holiday shipping season.
The Port of Oakland received 70,697 loaded import containers in October, down 3.3% from a year earlier. Import volume fell a precipitous 14% from this year’s late-summer peak in August. On Monday the Port of Long Beach, Calif., the nation’s second-largest port for container traffic, reported a 0.8% year-on-year decline and a similar drop from August.
The lack of a bump in imports in late summer and early fall is unusual. Some analysts say the declines show extreme congestion during labor negotiations at West Coast ports earlier this year continues to disrupt normal trade flows. Many shippers stocked up on goods as relations between unions and port operators deteriorated, and have little need to import more while they work through those inventories.
Retailers are predicting an uptick in holiday sales this year, which would help draw down inventories and potentially lead to higher imports in the future. On Tuesday, the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates predicted import volumes at major U.S. ports would rise 8.3% in November from a year ago as the holiday shopping season kicks off.
Overall, loaded imports at Oakland were off 0.4% for the year, due largely to the anemic months of January and February, during the worst of the congestion. Collectively, January and February of this year were down 38% from the same period in 2014.
From March through September of this year, however, import traffic in Oakland was healthy with volumes well above their 2014 levels. October was the first month since February that Oakland saw a decline in import volume. In a statement, the port attributed the declines to a “lighter-than-usual” peak season, as ocean carriers have reported falling demand for space on their vessels.
In October, Oakland also reported a steep drop in export volume, which fell 13.7% to 74,293 loaded containers. Including empty container moves, which were flat at 47,294, port volume fell 6.9% year over year.
