North American ports

The Teamsters union Tuesday stepped up its organizing efforts in Southern California, targeting another drayage company in Los Angeles-Long Beach, and announcing a partnership with a warehouse worker advocacy organization.

The labor strife of the past year was so devastating to West Coast ports and their customers that no one, including the dockworkers union, wants that scenario to play out again in the 2019 negotiations, Noel Hacegaba, chief commercial officer at the Port of Long Beach.

The Port of Savannah posted increases of 5.6 percent in full containers, 13.4 percent in full import containers, and 7.3 percent in total 20-foot-equivalent volume during September

Ocean carriers, having essentially no control over pricing, are intensifying their efforts to uncover cost savings. That’s why improving productivity at the berth, which allows lines to maximize slow-steaming while remaining on schedule, is taking on a higher priority. Among the remaining opportunities is further leveraging of alliances into the inland arena.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s board approved an agreement Thursday that will allow construction to proceed on a ship-to-rail facility adjacent to the semi-automated GCT Bayonne terminal.

Cross-border shipments of auto parts from Mexico are outpacing growth in containerized imports through U.S. ports in a market roiled by West Coast port congestion and diversion to air freight during the first half of this year.

Port operations managers agree that container dwell time is a major contributor to marine terminal congestion, yet ocean carriers continue to allow some of their customers, particularly large retailers, to compound the congestion problem by exceeding cargo storage time limits.

The Port of Charleston’s September volume of full 20-foot-equivalent units rose 10.1 percent year-over-year, reflecting what South Carolina Ports Authority CEO Jim Newsome described as “broad-based strength across all market segments.”

West Coast ports are perfectly capable of accommodating even greater cargo surges from big ships in the years ahead, but to do so they may have to turn to more exotic measures.

The Georgia Ports Authority plans to invest $152 million in capital improvements at the port of Brunswick, including construction of a new roll-on, roll-off berth, during the next decade.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is “considering all options” for replacing thousands of older trucks in order to meet a fast-approaching deadline under the port’s clean-air plan, a spokesman said.

Total international containers handled by the Northwest Seaport Alliance increased 3.7 percent in September from the same month last year as the ports of Seattle and Tacoma continue to regain traffic lost earlier in the year due to port congestion and labor disruptions associated with the coastwide longshore contract negotiations.

Labor issues contributed to West Coast port congestion this past year, but it is the cargo surges from big ships and the “extraordinary randomness” of container discharges and truck visits to marine terminals that will be the longer-lasting problems for ports, according to Long Beach CEO Jon Slangerup.

The Port of Baltimore handled a record 86,149 twenty-foot-equivalent units of total container volume in August, continuing a strong run that has produced the highest three-month volume of total containers, full TEUs and full import TEUs in the port’s history.

Total container volume at the Port of Los Angeles declined 5.8 percent in September compared to the same month last year, with imports down 9.4 percent and exports declining 17.5 percent. Although Los Angeles in recent months has been regaining some of the market share it lost to East Coast ports during the 2014-15 West Coast labor dispute, volumes are still down 2.9 percent year-to-date from last year.

The Port of Los Angeles has launched a supplemental environmental impact review of the China Shipping Container Line terminal to determine if some of the ambitious pollution-reduction measures in the earlier EIR should be revisited and possibly revised given the state of technology, and the already significant achievements in reducing pollution at the largest U.S. port.

The Port of Mobile, Alabama, is working to build a near-dock refrigerated warehouse for transloading poultry into containers for export.

Sea Pac LLC is building a 1.5 million-square-foot facility that the South Carolina Ports Authority hopes will help Charleston compete for plastic resin exports, a market that Houston now dominates.

Two financial ratings services have affirmed their debt ratings for the South Carolina Ports Authority, which is preparing to issue $290 million in revenue bonds for container terminal upgrades and other capital projects.

U.S. East Coast ports will increase their share of containerized trade from 35 percent to roughly half by 2020, putting them on parity with the West Coast, according to Rafi Danieli, CEO and president of Zim Integrated Shipping Services.

The first cold-treated citrus imports from Latin America have arrived at the port of Savannah under a U.S. pilot program that aims to cut logistics costs for produce shippers and stands to boost Savannah’s already growing refrigerated cargo business.

The Port of Long Beach has exceeded the 2014 pollution-reduction goals contained in the San Pedro Bay Ports Clean Air Action Plan, and is moving forward with a program to further reduce harmful diesel emissions.

After months of delay, the Port of New York and New Jersey is moving to break a truck-replacement deadlock that motor carriers say threatens their continued ability to serve the U.S. East Coast’s busiest port.

California Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday signed a bill that will enhance the ability of ports to secure additional bond revenue for infrastructure and environmental projects. This will make it easier for Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland, three of the six largest U.S. container ports, to be more competitive through freight infrastructure development.

Long Beach had one its best Septembers ever, continuing a recent trend in which West Coast ports are regaining some of the market share they lost this past year due to congestion and work slowdowns that accompanied the coastwide dockworker negotiations.

Containerized imports at the Port of Oakland in September increased for the seventh straight month, demonstrating that the Northern California port has recaptured some of the market share it lost earlier this year during the congestion that plagued all West Coast ports during the longshore contract negotiations.

If there is one take-away for shippers, carriers and labor from the West Coast port congestion of 2014-15, it has to be that reliability is always more important than cost and transit time in determining cargo routing.

SSA Marine Vice President John DiBernardo says it is no wonder that many container terminals today are struggling to handle the cargo surges generated by big ships. They continue to do business much as they did in the days of breakbulk shipping, acting as storage sheds as they await the arrival of truckers who show up in randomly.

Retailers project that U.S. containerized imports from Asia this month will rise only 3.3 percent year-over-year, a further sign that what normally is the busiest month of the annual peak season in the eastbound Pacific will be only a “bump” this year.

Container volumes handled by West Coast ports are returning to historical levels, but the weekly manpower requirements for handling the containers is about 15 percent higher than in the past. That suggests terminal operators are struggling to adjust to the complexities caused by mega-ships, vessel-sharing alliances and chassis shortages.

As the Port of New York and New Jersey tries to reduce chronically long lines for the 86 percent of its containers that move by truck, there are growing cries to extend gate hours. But there’s a problem — many distribution centers aren’t open late to receive the cargo.

A small port in Maine is enjoying a renaissance thanks to lobsters, L.L. Bean and Eimskip, the Icelandic container line that specializes in the refrigerated trade.

The Port of Oakland has won a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to help it reduce carbon emissions from some of its dockside equipment.

The National Labor Relations Board determined that International Longshore and Warehouse Union Locals 8 and 40 in Portland violated federal laws prohibiting secondary boycotts by engaging in work stoppages and slowdowns, and on Wednesday ordered the ILWU to cease and desist from those activities.

Spot shortages of chassis continue to plague terminal operators in Los Angeles-Long Beach, seven months after the portwide “pool of pools” was rolled out by chassis-leasing companies with the intention of eliminating that very problem.

Tests of truck appointments at the Port of New York and New Jersey will begin late this year or in early 2016, said Rich Ceci, vice president, information technology, at GCT USA.

Targeted completion of a $1.3 billion project to raise the clearance for ships passing under the Port of New York and New Jersey’s Bayonne Bridge has been pushed back more than a year, until late 2017.

A process known as free flow, or peel off, is attracting favorable reviews from terminal operators as well as truckers in Los Angeles-Long Beach. Though still considered to be in its infancy since it was launched in early 2014, the ports are confident enough about the potential of peel off that they are identifying parcels of land in the harbor area that can be used to expand the program.

The Port of New York and New Jersey’s import container volume rose 6 percent year-over-year in August as growth moderated after months of double-digit increases aided by West Coast cargo diversions.