SYDNEY: The port has seen a spike in the movement of empty containers this year – bigger than its East Coast competitors, though the trend in Hampton Roads is consistent with other large U.S. ports.
From January through August, the port handled 40.4 percent more empty containers, as measured in standard 20-foot units, or TEUs, than it did in the same period last year.
Other East Coast ports also saw year-over-year increases in empties over the same eight-month period. New York/New Jersey, the biggest port on the East Coast, saw a nearly 31 percent increase; Savannah, Ga., the second-largest, reported a 30.2 percent gain; Charleston, S.C., at No. 4, saw a nearly 23 percent gain, according to data on the ports’ websites.
In the big scheme of things, empties account for less than a fifth of the boxes moved in or out of Hampton Roads, the third-largest East Coast port – about 17 percent in the first eight months of this year and about 13.5 percent in the same period last year. Most of the empties moving through the port are outbound – 3 out of 4 from January through June and more than 70 percent in the same period in 2014.
“Empties have been a challenge for us,” Joe Harris, spokesman for the Virginia Port Authority, said last week.
In late March of this year, in the aftermath of winter storms and amid a lot of congestion, there were roughly 22,000 empty containers portwide, which the authority made it a priority to move.
In May and June, empties exported from the port totaled 35,742 and 38,627 TEUs, respectively, more than any other two months in the past two fiscal years.
Shipping activity at Port Qasim on February 11
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