Port News

Drayage provider NEXT Trucking is piloting a peel pile program in Southern California that links vessel stowage at origin with quick unloading of containers at warehouse destinations to narrow total transit times for shipments.

RoadOne IntermodaLogistics said a new transload facility that will open in August less than six miles from the Port of Virginia will help meet the growing need for e-commerce fulfillment close to consumers.

Canada’s federal government will partially fund a new container exam station at the Port of Halifax which aims to speed up container flow off its docks.

The Alabama Port Authority will receive $38 million in a federal grant that will go toward attracting new warehousing and improving truck access in and around the Port of Mobile.

The Port of Charleston is opening Sunday truck gates and adding longer operating hours on other days in an attempt to clear its terminals of import containers and pare down the queue of vessels outside its harbor.

The Port of Oakland and the Northwest Seaport Alliance have lent support to a Long Beach initiative designed to capture and make available container milestone information.

As the July 1 expiration of the current contract looms, the lack of reassuring signals from labor and management against a backdrop of still-heavy port congestion is leading importers to begin to shift away from the West Coast.

Outgoing White House port envoy John Porcari told TPM22 that lasting improvements to US port performance will need more than just the short-term changes he helped implement.

Most of the world’s major carriers have now suspended shipments to and from Russia, severely restricting commercial maritime access to the country in the aftermath of its invasion of Ukraine.

Growing truck queues are snarling operations at India’s main container port, raising the prospect of delays to both imports and exports and putting reefer shipments at risk.

A reconfigured chassis pool will launch in 2023 covering three Southeast US ports, aiming to replace an aging fleet with new and refurbished chassis containing the latest technology and safety features.

Ocean carriers have been bouncing ship calls between Savannah and Charleston due to the congestion affecting both ports, but the moves present a logistical challenge for exporters.

Labor and transportation representatives in Oakland strongly oppose a proposed baseball stadium and condo project at Howard Terminal that they say would result in an operational nightmare at the port.

The Port of Savannah will compete dredging work within a couple weeks to deepen its harbor to 47 feet and expand storage capacity by 2.7 million TEU by 2024, the Georgia Ports Authority said Thursday.

Europe’s busiest container port was able to shrug off congestion and fewer ship arrivals to report rising container volume in 2021.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted the closure of the country’s main port of Odessa, forcing container carriers to divert vessels.

The Port of Charleston is not accepting export loads in the Wando Welch Terminal during the morning on Thursday and Friday as it struggles with a shortage of terminal space and faces a backlog of more than 30 vessels anchored outside its harbor

The South Carolina Ports Authority has proposed converting of one of three International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) locals from part-time to full-time work in exchange for the ILA settling its dispute over work performed at the new Leatherman terminal in Charleston.

Terminal operators in Los Angeles-Long Beach believe they have turned the corner on unprecedented congestion issues that have plagued the port complex for the past two years, but they say cargo flow will not improve significantly in the first half of 2022.

California said that six state-owned properties will be made available for off-port container storage, five months after the state’s governor issued an executive order for more storage.

The new terminal for Busan comes as the port has been plagued by congestion for months, leading carriers to suffer schedule delays or skip the port on European, trans-Pacific, and intra-Asia services.

John Porcari’s pending departure comes as the port envoy role will shift to a more permanent structure under the new Federal Office of Multimodal Freight Policy, created as part of the bipartisan infrastructure bill signed into law in November.

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.

An order for new cranes from APM Terminals Mumbai will increase its handling capacity by 10 percent and allow it to work larger vessels.

Bob Curry Sr., a drayage industry pioneer who grew Cal Cartage from a Southern California less-than-truckload operator to a logistics provider for the container shipping industry throughout the US, died last week at 90.

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

Terminal operators in Los Angeles-Long Beach have dropped their plan to incentivize nighttime truck moves after the chairman of the Federal Maritime Commission questioned the motive behind the move.

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.

Visibility software company FourKites is tracking a drop in cargo volumes and on-time performance in northbound shipments as protesting Canadian truck drivers bring more disruption to the US-Canadian border.

US resin exporters are finding a much tougher shipping market to start 2022 as export gateways deal with unreliable vessel schedules and tight capacity.

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.

Potential automation of cargo handling is most likely the major topic of discussion as International Longshore & Warehouse Union delegates gather this week to develop their strategy for upcoming contract negotiations with West Coast employers.

Patrick, the biggest terminal operator in Australia, was the last of the major terminal companies to agree to a new deal with the Maritime Union of Australia following multi-year agreements last year between the MUA and the other leading terminal operators in the country.

Officials from the International Longshoremen's Association and the United States Maritime Alliance have had “discussions about discussions” in recent months about a contract extension that would focus primarily on wage levels.

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.

US resin exports fell last year amid limited production capacity and strong domestic demand.

Labor and chassis shortages and increasing truck turn times and vessel backlogs signal more congestion ahead for the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in the coming months.