North American ports

Florida ports remain in the pole position for refrigerated cargo handling thanks to the addition of new north-south container services and growth in cold warehousing.

Ceres Terminals’ 20-year deal to operate the TraPac container terminal in Jacksonville includes a pledge to spend $15 million to upgrade the facility.

The Port of Virginia has about a dozen vessels anchored outside its harbor after two late January snowstorms disrupted operations for 96 hours, but the port believes it can recover quickly.

Nearly 20 vessels are anchored outside Charleston, and although progress has been made to address the congestion, it will take until at least mid-March to clear completely.

The Port of Savannah has cleared the backlog of vessels outside its harbor and is considering developing additional pop-up storage sites outside Georgia to keep the port fluid in the coming months.

Fresh state funding for the Port of Philadelphia is meant to continue modernization efforts that kicked off in 2016 with the aim of doubling the port’s container capacity.

Almost $300 million in intermodal projects that will be developed at the Port of Mobile over the coming years will boost the port’s state and national reach, according to its chief executive.

Eliminating congestion necessitates ensuring adequate container flow through terminals, and when that core issue is prioritized, the performance of the US port system — and the global supply chain — will improve.

With imports rising along the US Gulf Coast as shippers seek an alternative to congested West Coast ports, warehousing and distribution capacity in the Gulf region is growing as a result.

Oakland said the US Department of Agriculture will partly fund a temporary depot at the unused Howard Terminal for the storage of export-ready containers.

While vessels have anchored outside ports in Georgia, New Jersey, and South Carolina, Virginia’s backlog has never been in the double digits despite volumes growing by 25 percent last year.

A willingness by carriers to deploy more sweeper ships to evacuate empty containers, and carry empties from competing lines, will have a major impact on mitigating an important source of congestion, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach say.

The Alabama Port Authority is looking to add an inland rail terminal with the purchase of land near the state capitol of Montgomery.

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach want to give the temporary extension of a fee on daytime container moves more time to determine if truck moves during the off hours increase substantially.

The Georgia Ports Authority will extend the use of pop-up storage sites another three months through April, citing the success of the off-site locations in whittling down the vessel backlog in Savannah.

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are considering an innovative but complex plan to reduce the number of empty containers that are contributing to terminal congestion by incentivizing shipping lines to increase the volume of containers they pick up during each call.

Inflation, higher interest rates, and a gradual shift back to a more “normal” balance in consumer spending between goods and services will reduce import volumes in the second half of 2022, in turn relieving pressure on ports and inland supply chains.

Savannah’s $250 million berth extension will ultimately increase the port’s capacity and reflect the increased pressure on major US ports to maximize their docks amid increased demand, both from regular services and extra-loaders.

Port officials are warning that the queue of 15 container ships waiting to berth at Charleston likely will not be cleared for up to six weeks due to a backlog of more than 25,000 containers at the terminal.

A $69 million infusion of federal funds will allow the Port of Virginia to begin work on the next phase of its dredging project, which along with other enhancements will allow the port to handle up to six post-Panamax vessels simultaneously in the coming years.

Having US ports return to a pre-COVID “status quo” depends on a slowing of cargo volumes and a return of labor to the logistics workforce in significant enough numbers to improve cargo flow.

Plagued by vessel bunching, terminal congestion, and equipment shortages for much of last year, North America’s West Coast ports are cautioned that these conditions are likely to persist well into 2022 even if imports slow from the double-digit gains in 2021.

Houston is seeing a surge in imports thanks to the upsizing of vessel services from Asia as other Gulf Coast ports look for a similar uplift.

The port of New York and New Jersey saw more ships wait longer for an open berth to start 2022 as holidays and the Omicron outbreak dealt a swift hit to port-wide capacity.

The Georgia Ports Authority this week began moving import containers belonging to a US retailer to the spare runway at Statesboro Airport, which has been used to store empty boxes and loaded exports since December.

A new vessel queueing system in Oakland, similar to the process implemented in Los Angeles-Long Beach, is designed to reduce pollution and promote vessel safety amid expectations of a growing backlog of ships.

The Northwest Seaport Alliance is preparing for additional container and intermodal volumes with the opening Friday of the first phase of Terminal 5 in Seattle.

While longer berth times in Los Angeles-Long Beach reflect, in part, higher “call sizes,” carrier executives say more than anything else the elevated times are a direct result of the lack of space on the terminal.

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach acknowledge the recent lack of conformity on the issue of container fees can be counterproductive as they attempt to reduce historic operational bottlenecks in the nation’s largest port complex.

Vessels have backed up outside the Port of Charleston for the second time in as many months, but port officials believe they can resolve the issue within two weeks if importers retrieve their containers faster.

Increases in spot truckload rates to Chicago from eastern US ports are outpacing rate hikes off the West Coast, as the spot market enters 2022 at record price levels amid “extraordinary” demand.

Alabama plans to beef up its main north-south rail line from the Port of Mobile with a series of upgrades and additional capital projects.

Employers and the ILWU fear that the spike in COVID-19 cases that surfaced about two weeks ago in Los Angeles and Long Beach is set to explode over the next two weeks, meaning historic vessel congestion could worsen.

The creation of an ILWU-supported California task force on automation shows how the union is increasingly determined to fight automation outside the confines of a contract that allows employers to automate.

Ports and marine terminals say that more containers can be moved through on-dock rail now that service has improved, and rail car supply has eased.

The number of vessels anchored outside Savannah has fallen to fewer than five, a significant improvement from September when the number was as high as 30.

The Port of Oakland opens an off-site container yard that aims to make it easier for ag shippers to access empty containers to use for exports.

The Port of Los Angeles has taken aim at empty containers at its terminals with a proposed fee in January that would penalize container lines for failing to move long-dwelling outbound boxes.

The Port of New York–New Jersey is seeing an uptick in ships waiting for an open berth as vessel calls rise and more freight gets diverted from other ports.

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach once again postpone the long-dwell container fees as a major terminal operator in Long Beach imposes fees of its own.