North American ports

Port and terminal managers expect the NWSA of Seattle and Tacoma to quickly recover from a one-day shutdown of several container terminals due to unprecedented high temperatures in the region.

A member of the Federal Maritime Commission said the container alliances must address empty container returns in New York and New Jersey or face shortages of drayage truckers.

The Port of Charleston has restored pre-COVID-19 Saturday hours to handle volumes affected by double-digit import growth and a labor lawsuit involving the Hugh K. Leatherman Terminal.

The Port of Wilmington announces the start of a new refrigerated container service for the region’s produce shippers as it seeks to partake in reefer import growth along the US East Coast.

US imports from Asia grew faster at West Coast ports than at East and Gulf coast ports in January through May as carriers launched a half-dozen new trans-Pacific services to handle the continuing boom in imports from Asia.

The six busiest North American ports eked out gains in import market share during 2020 thanks to the surge in inbound container volumes at the biggest gateways.

Port Container Yard has reopened a 55-acre container yard in Newark that was previously dedicated to empty containers to store import boxes vacated from congested Port of New York and New Jersey terminals.

An expected increase in resin exports out of Houston and other Gulf Coast gateways appears to be taking longer than expected as resin producers seek to supply domestic customers first.

Vacating rail containers to the Pier S “surge” facility is allowing terminal operators in the Port of Long Beach to continue working ships despite excessive dwell times for those boxes.

Caution is in order when looking at the durability of the current surge, as there is little reason to expect that the current torrid pace will continue as we move into 2022 and beyond.

Dole will begin a new weekly container service to Port Tampa Bay that will carry its own cargo and provide additional capacity to other shippers to and from Central America.

Two more carriers follow Zim in suspending some trans-Pacific calls in Oakland until congestion issues and vessel bunching are eased.

The Port of Virginia believes two milestones will put them on firm footing to become the deepest port on the US East by late 2023 or early 2024.

Oakland and Seattle-Tacoma are scrambling to address mounting congestion problems as carriers add services there to circumvent even worse congestion in Los Angeles-Long Beach.

Refrigerated cargo and breakbulk specialty carrier SeacatLine plans to make a bi-weekly service between Costa Rica and Tampa Bay a weekly service with an additional vessel deployment.

CMA CGM’s decision to increase container vessel capacity from Southeast Asia stems from the increasing shift in import sourcing away from China and ability of East Coast ports to handle volumes.

Imports of photovoltaic cells used in solar power generation continue to reach new highs as the US developers plan to make major capacity additions over the next four years.

Logistics software startup Splyc is using automation to tackle what it sees as a major issue in container logistics technology: the speed with which information is passed from one system to another.

Although US imports from Asia in April did not match the impressive volume recorded in March, it was nevertheless the busiest April on record and the 10th consecutive month of year-over-year import increases since last July.

The International Longshoremen’s Association is delaying a lawsuit against two ocean carriers over making calls at a nonunion Charleston terminal until the NLRB addresses whether the lawsuit violates federal labor law.

Sealand Marine will add a stop in Wilmington on its Central American service beginning in June, adding more connections with Panama and introducing new services between North Carolina and Costa Rica.

Two major trucking groups in the port of New York and New Jersey said their members’ increasing frustration with empty returns is forcing them to quit a port efficiency task force.

New legislation introduced in Congress would make projects that reduce the carbon footprint of port operations eligible for grants within the Maritime Administration’s Port Infrastructure Development Program.

The port of Savannah is building what will be one of the first cross-dock facility within a US container port, accelerating Georgia Ports Authority’s attempt to attract transloaded cargo away from Southern California.

The decision by the Ocean Alliance to hold off on calling the newly opened Leatherman terminal is a sign the dispute between South Carolina and the International Longshore Association over the crane and yard work being handled by non-union state employees is heating up.

Marine terminals in the Port of New York and New Jersey are taking steps that will allow them to handle more containers and deliver them more quickly to truckers as a nine-month deluge in US imports looks set to continue.

The Port of Charleston plans to form its own proprietary chassis pool by May 2022, citing an inability to bring new, safer chassis into the existing South Atlantic Chassis Pool.

The first big enhancement to NY–NJ intermodal service in nearly three years, Waverly Loop, is scheduled to debut at the end of 2021 while other projects are still being discussed.

CMA CGM is diverting a ship away from the Leatherman terminal due to fears of an ILA lawsuit and a potential berth conflict with two Ocean Alliance services.

Expecting to handle 6 million TEU as soon as 2023 rather than 2025, the Georgia Ports Authority has announced new expansion projects while also pushing the timeline for a mega-container terminal.

Oakland and Seattle-Tacoma are adjusting to a large increase in imports that have been diverted from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, but are reporting very little landside congestion.

Two New Orleans terminals have backed off, for now, assessing new container fees on shippers after coffee importers complained about another cost tacked onto their ever-rising transportation bills.

A new all-water service from Asia will boost the volume of imports flowing into the US Gulf Coast amid an ongoing boom in regional import distribution capacity.

Motor carriers working in the Port of New York and New Jersey say policies put in place by THE Alliance members Hapag-Lloyd, Yang Ming, and Ocean Network Express have made it especially difficult to return empty containers in April.

Double- and triple-digit year-over-year increases in imports from Asia at the top US gateways speak to the issues of vessel bunching and congested marine terminals at some of the busiest ports.

With the US economy recovering at the fastest pace since 1984, shipping executives and analysts are warning that container shipping is going to get messier in the foreseeable future.

Boston’s Conley Terminal expects to be big-ship ready by fall of 2021 after installation of new cranes.

The Port of Charleston has opened the first new container terminal in the US since 2009, increasing its terminal capacity by nearly 30 percent as cargo volumes surge in the Southeast.

The Port of New Orleans has become a part investor, along with developer Lineage Logistics and the state of Louisiana, in a nearby cold storage warehouse that will serve the state’s poultry exporters.

Port executives say the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex has sufficient terminal capacity to handle projected cargo volumes until late in the decade.