Port of Los Angeles: More than 1 million TEUs were handled in May, the 10th consecutive month of year-over-year growth and a 74% increase compared to the same period last year. It was the busiest month in the port’s 114-year history and the first time a port in the Western Hemisphere handled more than 1 million TEUs in a month.
Port of Oakland: From January to May, the port handled 1.08 million containers, a record high.
Port of New York-New Jersey: Freight volume continues to maintain double-digit growth. Cargo handling volume at the New York-New Jersey Port increased by 23.8% in May 2021, reaching 796,693 TEU. This is the 10th consecutive month of growth for the port.
Port of Jacksonville, Florida: Container throughput set a new monthly record in May, reaching 128,900TEU, an increase of 37% from the same period last year, surpassing the port’s record in October 2019 Monthly container throughput record of 123,700TEU.
These figures highlight the pressure on U.S. ports, with cargo volumes increasing and container imports remaining high.
According to the American Retail Association’s estimates, U.S. port container imports will remain above 2 million TEU in a single month from May to September, continuing to increase from previous forecasts. The main reason is that economic activities are gradually recovering, but U.S. retailer inventories are still at nearly 30-year lows, and strong demand for restocking will further boost cargo demand.
Congestion at major U.S. West Coast ports has eased and ship turnaround times improved over the past few months, but importers and logistics companies will face another challenge in the coming months. More trouble.
Congestion extends from the port to the interior
Seko Logistics executives said the surge in cargo volume has given Los Angeles and Long Beach (Long Beach) port and other regional rail and trucking networks bring new pressures.
Craig Grossgart, senior vice president of global ocean shipping at Seko, expects a large amount of cargo to flow to the West Coast in the next few months. He noted that as a result of last year’s lockdown, there will be strong demand for everything as children and teenagers return to school and adults return to work, which will lead to further congestion.
The current congestion comes from pressure on the entire landside transport network and extends inland.
There are recent reports that Asian shipping lines are rejecting bookings for some inland destinations such as Indianapolis, Minneapolis and Toronto.
According to Craig Grossgart, Seko’s senior vice president of global shipping, the current situation is very unstable. He said: “This will create cascading disruptions over the coming months, from an IPI perspective, certain ramps will be closed and certain ramps will suspend the entry of any further containers.”
While it is difficult to predict where and when these events will occur, there will certainly be problems in Chicago and Dallas, he added.
In Chicago, the number of stranded containers has been increasing. He pointed out that customers cannot pick up containers for transfer, but still need to pay storage fees. Carriers, in turn, have been hit by storage charges due to disruptions to landside rail traffic as terminals suspend container traffic.
Brian Baskin of Seko in Los Angeles said: “The situation in the next few months is very serious, and in the next year, we will continue to see this situation repeated.” He express.
Maersk: Delays will lead to a loss of 33% of US-Western shipping capacity
The congestion problem at US ports remains unresolved, with dozens of Asian cargo ships still waiting to unload, while the outbreak in the US continues Buy foreign goods. According to the latest data released by the United States, the country’s imports of goods in May reached 232.4 billion U.S. dollars (approximately 1.5 trillion yuan), approaching a record high!
The problem of cargo ships queuing up to unload has been going on for half a year.
In April this year, some media reported that an Asian ship carrying as many as 14,000 containers ran aground on the West Coast of the United States. Some containers stayed for more than a week, and sometimes as many as 40 The ship is waiting to be unloaded.
Maersk, the world’s largest container ship operator, said that since the beginning of this year, the shipping capacity on the US West Coast to and from Asia has lost 20%; from June to the end of August, the shipping capacity is expected to increase. The loss was 13%; the impact was already more serious than the Suez Canal accident in March this year. </p
