LOS ANGELES: Shipments through the Port of Los Angeles fell at a steep rate last month, extending a downward trend over the past year that suggests the port is bearing the brunt of sluggish U.S. international trade.
In September, Los Angeles handled 124,286 loaded twenty-foot equivalent units, a standard measure for container cargo. That was off 17.5% from last September, the 12th straight month that loaded export containers declined from a year ago. Imports declined 9.4% year-over-year, to 372,991 inbound containers.
Shipping at many of the largest U.S. ports has been tepid in recent months. Foundering demand for U.S. goods in the troubled European and Asian economies has clipped exports and overstocking earlier this year by American retailers has led many of them restrain imports heading into the fall.
But most ports aren’t reporting the deep declines that Los Angeles is coping with.
At the neighboring Port of Long Beach, imports fell 1.9% in September while exports were up 6.1% from the same month last year.
For January through August, the major ports of New York and New Jersey, Savannah, Ga. and Seattle and Tacoma, Wash., reported double-digit gains in loaded import containers. Imports at the Port of Oakland were flat for the first nine months of 2015 through September while Long Beach has reported an increase of 2.1% in imports over the same period last year.
The East Coast ports have reaped the benefits of congestion on the West Coast earlier this year related to protracted contract negotiations with the dockworkers’ union there. The talks wrapped up in late February, but the West Coast has been slow to fully recover their cargo volumes as many shippers shifted their goods to different routes after months of uncertainty at the Pacific ports.
Overall, including an additional 233,029 empties, Los Angeles saw a decline of 5.8% in total container volume in September—the largest drop since the height of West Coast port congestion earlier this year.
The inbound container volume at Los Angeles also fell 8.5% from August to September, a break from historic patterns that see business grow as retailers bring in goods for the holiday sales season.
Los Angeles is facing tough comparisons to 2014, when it handled 8.3 million containers, the most since 2007. A spokesman for the Port of Los Angeles said 2014 was a near-record year, and beating last year’s volumes has been challenging in the wake of this year’s congestion problems.
Jim Blaeser, a maritime analyst at consulting firm AlixPartners, said although Los Angeles may be “a victim of its own success” last year, the impact of the labor strife is still hitting the West Coast ports generally.
Empty export containers have exceeded loaded outbound containers for 16 of the last 17 months in Los Angeles. Empties are shipping out at a faster rate at many U.S. ports, particularly those closely tied to trade with China like Los Angeles—a signal of the growing trade imbalance.
From January through September of this year, the port moved a total of 6.1 million containers, down 3% from the same period last year.
Shipping activity at Port Qasim on February 11
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