North American ports

Eight ports on the U.S. East Coast made substantial gains in import market share in the first six months of 2015. A booming import market, West Coast diversions tied to the recent labor crisis, and port investments helped East and Gulf Coast ports edge out all but one of their West Coast counterparts.

The commissioners of the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma have given the final OK needed to launch an alliance aimed at helping the former rivals stave off growing competition, and regain market share.

For most ports on the U.S. West Coast, late 2014 and early 2015 was a year of seemingly-unending congestion and slumping cargo traffic. Not so at California’s Port of Hueneme, which just reported its highest cargo year in its 78-year history.

The Port of Miami posted double-digit container volume growth in June, a testament to the port’s concerted effort to boost organic growth and preserve business diverted from the U.S. West Coast during the port congestion crisis in late 2014 and early 2015.

Long Beach Container Terminal, which will open a terminal early next year the Port of Long Beach has billed as the world’s greenest container terminal, received the Mayor’s Green Port award Wednesday at ceremonies marking the 10th anniversary of the Long Beach Green Port program.

Port Canaveral this week broke ground on what will soon be the port’s first multimodal inland facility, part of the Florida port’s ongoing campaign to snag container traffic from other U.S. East Coast ports.

The Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners Monday elected Lori Ann Farrell Harrison as its new president. The commission president chairs board meetings and represents the port before the public.

Los Angeles-Long Beach is moving slowly toward a dual system of drayage in which some drivers are becoming unionized employees, while others prefer to remain independent contractors. Eventually, the result could be a sufficient pool of drivers to serve the 13 container terminals in the largest U.S. port complex, resulting in service and pricing consistency for the shippers that depend on harbor drivers.

The Port of New York and New Jersey's container volume during the first half of 2015 rose 13.4 percent from a year earlier, putting the East Coast's largest port on pace to exceed its record 2014 volume.

The Port Authority of New York has agreed to several antipollution measures while it continues work on future phases of a program to replace older trucks at the East Coast’s largest port. But environmentalists aren’t content.

Labor and port opposition to legislation that would require U.S. ports to provide monthly productivity reports have stripped out what is the arguably the crux of the bill: productivity reports during negotiations with unionized port labor.

All sectors of the Southern California transportation community are confident that they will handle the spike in container volume this peak season, but longer-term challenges with big ships, carrier alliances, truck turn times and rail performance remain a concern.

State and federal officials in Virginia broke ground on two major projects this week aimed at relieving congestion at the state port after delays hit near-unprecedented levels earlier this year.

PierPass Inc. on its 10th anniversary Thursday was basking in the warmth of comments from political and environmental leaders recognizing the program that was created by the terminal operators in Los Angeles-Long Beach for successfully mitigating daytime port-generated traffic.

California port executives Thursday urged key legislative representatives meeting in Oakland to invest in the state’s priority trade corridors to stem the loss of cargo to competing North American ports.

Linda Styrk, managing director of the Port of Seattle’s maritime division, is leaving the port to take the position of executive director for the Puget Sound Pilots. Styrk holds a U.S. Coast Guard Third Mate’s License, and she is married to a pilot who guides ships through the Northwest Passage to Alaska.

A new era of cooperation between Seattle and Tacoma will dawn Thursday when the Northwest Seaport Alliance becomes effective following approval of the agreement by the Federal Maritime Commission.

Port of Portland Executive Director Bill Wyatt is recuperating in a Portland hospital after a recent motorcycle accident while on vacation in Oregon.

Hamburg Sud has returned to the Port of Miami a decade after it left by joining an existing Ocean Three service connecting the U.S. East Coast to China, advancing the German carrier and the port’s effort to attract more Asian import cargo.

U.S. Federal Maritime Chairman Mario Cordero on Monday said that Los Angeles-Long Beach terminal operators should explain why they need to raise the traffic mitigation fee and raised the prospect of sunsetting the fee, providing ammunition to shippers’ fight against PierPass.

Direct ChassisLink Inc. has rescinded a $200 chassis usage fee that generated complaints from New York-New Jersey port truckers.

An organization of New York-New Jersey drayage companies said a chassis lessor’s new policy restricting use of its equipment casts fresh doubt on efforts to create a port-wide “gray” pool of interchangeable chassis.

Container volume at the Port of Long Beach in June declined 4.4 percent from June 2014, with loaded import containers down 6 percent and loaded exports dropping 8.4 percent. Empty containers, mostly destined for Asia, increased 2.4 percent, according to numbers posted on the port’s website.

Direct ChassisLink Inc. said it is temporarily restricting use of its intermodal chassis in the New York-New Jersey area to truckers hauling containers for three of DCLI’s main ocean carrier customers.

Port of Los Angeles staff is recommending that the port authority embark upon a five-year action plan to advance the development of zero-emission technologies for use in marine terminal yard tractors and for short-haul drayage to off-dock facilities such as intermodal rail yards.

A U.S. Senate committee Wednesday voted to send new legislation requiring U.S. ports to provide monthly productivity reports to the federal government to the Senate floor.

Containerized cargo volumes at the Port of Los Angeles declined 2 percent in June compared to June 2014, with a 10.7 percent drop in loaded export containers accounting for much of the decline.

The Port of Charleston’s double-digit volume growth is expected to slow to about 5 percent during the coming year but will remain above the U.S. market average, said Jim Newsome, CEO at the South Carolina Ports Authority.

Harbor truckers in Los Angeles-Long Beach are accepting the fact that, at least for the moment, turn times are stuck at about 90 minutes, when a little over a year ago average turn times in the largest U.S. port complex were about one hour.

The ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles will win back most of the market share they lost to East and Gulf Coast ports during labor disruptions this past year by moving cargo to eastern destinations faster and cheaper than other ports are able, Long Beach’s chief executive said Tuesday.

The U.S. Federal Maritime Commission is considering formation of an industry advisory council to discuss port congestion, and said a starting point might be demurrage and per-diem detention fees.

The Port of Gulfport, Mississippi, has encountered a setback to its hopes of dredging a channel large enough to match the port’s growth ambitions.

Noelia Rodriguez, a veteran communications executive with local and national experience, has been named to the newly-created position of director of communications at the Port of Long Beach. She will oversee the harbor department’s communications, government relations and marketing divisions.

The Port of Oakland in June recorded its fourth straight month of growth in containerized imports since the signing of a tentative coastwide longshore contract in late February. Imports should continue to increase through the busy peak-shipping season in late summer to fall.

West Coast ports are seeing the number of man-hours paid to move containers rise as volume stagnates, while at the same time the hourly cost of longshore labor is increasing.

A niche liner service linking Europe with the Great Lakes port of Cleveland has quadrupled its container volume since adding a second monthly sailing, and port officials say the fledgling operation is starting to catch on.

After bleeding market share earlier this year due to congestion and labor problems, the Seattle-Tacoma gateway appears to be leveling off in the competitive Pacific Northwest region. Port Metro Vancouver, Canada, is likewise leveling off, although Prince Rupert continues to register impressive double-digit gains compared to last year.