North American ports

Most big US ports are closing out the first half of 2023 with year-on-year double-digit volume declines as retail sales falter, but the West Coast labor deal may spark a seasonal uptick.

Refrigerated warehousing construction is “exploding” in the US Southeast, as one port executive put it, thanks to a growing population and increased demand for imported produce and other food products.

The deal, subject to ratification by both parties, ends 13 months of contentious negotiations marked by on-again, off-again job actions that disrupted port operations on the West Coast and diverted growing volumes of cargo to the East and Gulf coasts.

Minor progress in West Coast longshore talks came as ports operated without significant disruption on the first shift Wednesday, but were not completely spared some measure of labor action by workers.

Two major chassis lessors have committed to spending hundreds of millions of dollars to inject high-quality equipment to haul containers in five southern states.

The two sides will attempt to use the apparent truce brokered by Labor Secretary nominee Julie Su to reach agreement on the highly contentious issue of wages, which triggered disruptive job actions by ILWU locals over the past week.

The container shipping market is well down the path toward normalcy, and if current conditions continue for another few months, the surge-related volume overhang will be worked off, writes analyst Larry Gross.

The vote to authorize a strike at Vancouver and Prince Rupert comes as negotiations between the ILWU and maritime employers on the US West Coast appeared to hit a new low over the weekend.

The Pacific Maritime Association hopes Labor Secretary nominee Julie Su can get ILWU negotiators to move closer to a level of wage increases that puts an agreement within reach.

Talks between the ILWU and maritime employers continued Friday for a third straight day, which sources called a positive indicator with negotiations hitting the 13-month mark this weekend.

Cargo handling was back to normal Thursday in Los Angeles and Long Beach for the first time in a week, but the ports are now struggling with a large vessel backlog after not having sufficient longshore labor.

The Delaware port could be turned over to terminal operator Enstructure, which has committed to advancing the proposed Edgemoor container terminal project.

The year-on-year gap in monthly import volumes will only narrow as shippers start to ramp up back-to-school and seasonal product ordering, says the National Retail Federation.

The latest labor-related port disruptions along the West Coast came as coastwide contract negotiations between the ILWU and the Pacific Maritime Association were scheduled to resume Wednesday.

Shippers diverting goods away from the West Coast typically like what they see: Ports up and down the East and Gulf coasts that have invested significantly to handle growth, are customer-focused, take fluidity seriously and have experienced virtually no labor disruption since the late 1970s.

US consumers are still spending, but at a slower rate, and that’s pushing major restocking of goods further toward the back half of 2023, analysts and retailers say.

The disruptions happening now are a repeat of events in April when ILWU locals up and down the coast slowed cargo handling to gain leverage on local issues, which prevented coastwide negotiators from addressing broader issues such as wages and pension benefits.

The ports of Boston and Halifax are getting additional trans-Atlantic coverage through a new rotation on Mediterranean Shipping Co.’s north-south service from Ecuador.

Perhaps Robin Silvester’s biggest accomplishment leading the port was shepherding the early stages of the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project, which cleared a major environmental hurdle last month and will double Vancouver’s annual throughput capacity.

ILWU Canada rank-and-file will vote later this week on whether to issue a 72-hour strike notice, raising the unprecedented prospect of disruption on Canada’s West Coast amid job actions by labor along the US West Coast.

The White House said it was monitoring the fast-developing situation along the West Coast, while a major retail organization urged the Biden administration to intervene and warned about the ongoing diversion of cargo to the East and Gulf coasts.

Two stevedoring companies are looking to the Federal Maritime Commission to stop what they say is an unlawful access fee at the Port of Baltimore after one of them was invoiced $1.2 million.

The Container Port Performance Index for 2022 showed that among large ports, China’s Yangshan ranked No. 1, while Ningbo and Guangzhou were among the top 10.

The first chassis for a new equipment pool covering the ports of Jacksonville, Savannah, and Wilmington, NC, arrived this week, the first step ahead of an October launch.

The railroad is reducing demurrage fees and restoring additional free time that was eliminated in the past two years as international intermodal volumes have fallen sharply from East Coast ports.

Union Pacific’s launch of direct intermodal service from Houston comes two weeks after competitor BNSF announced it would begin a new service from the port’s Barbours Cut marine terminal.

Shippers and port executives say the post-COVID shift of cargo back to Hong Kong is being hampered by the global slump in demand as developed countries grapple with elevated inventories and inflationary pressures.

Thanks to a recent GRI push, average contract rates for India to the US have seen modest gains in recent weeks and carriers are now looking to build around that limited success.

The port congestion in Asia and North America that compromised vessel on-time performance during the pandemic began to ease last fall with declining cargo volumes, and the reliability improvements have accelerated since.

End-to-end supply chain visibility remains an elusive goal for providers in a market where shippers are expecting better data quality than they have seen.

With spot freight rates largely stabilized, ocean carriers have blanked fewer sailings in May and instead opted for more biweekly sailings.

Relative to other US East Coast ports that saw high import volumes in 2022 due to diversions from West Coast ports, PhilaPort saw more modest inbound growth.

Price volatility, economic uncertainty and China’s ongoing efforts to keep adulterated scrap products out of the country held back US exports of recyclable materials for the third straight year in 2022.

A decrease in US housing construction from the fever pitch seen during the COVID-19 pandemic is reducing demand for imports of furniture, appliances and other household goods.

The carrier will pay the penalty to avoid the Federal Maritime Commission launching a formal investigation into whether it violated US detention and demurrage shipping laws.

With a proposed baseball stadium at the terminal location off the table, the Port of Oakland is considering options to expand maritime support activities at the 50-acre site to complement overall growth at the port.

Forwarders do not expect prices to stabilize or trend up any time soon, with carriers increasingly struggling to secure steady booking levels to fill their export allocations out of India despite capacity readjustments.

The bipartisan legislation does not identify specific countries that manufacture the cranes that would be subject to inspection, but a statement from the co-sponsors specifically mentions China.

Some paper products remained in high demand last year, but a decline in China’s real estate economy and a ban on a certain type of pine logs put additional downward pressure on forest products exports.

With import volumes sharply lower than last year, trans-Pacific carriers are more willing to consider requests for fixed-rate pricing and inland transportation bookings in 2023-24 service contracts, sources say.