Photo: Courtesy of the Port of Los Angeles
San Pedro Bay
The tally of ships anchored in San Pedro Bay waiting to enter the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach has begun creeping upward again.
Mid-July data from the local Marine Exchange was showing that more than 20 vessels were at anchor awaiting berth space- reflecting increased imports from China after a pause during June, when as few as 10 container vessels were waiting in the Bay. The pause coincided with the closure of large portions of the export hub of Yantian port in South China, which caused significant disruption to global container shipping.
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Import gains at top US container gateways go ballistic
The import stats at U.S. ports just went ballistic. Year-on-year (y/y) gains skyrocketed for two reasons. First, March volumes were unusually strong as high as the peak in October. Second, import volumes in March 2020 were unusually weak, suppressed by the initial COVID lockdowns.
This confluence led to some eye-catching statistics published by The McCown Report on Thursday: Imports to the top 10 U.S. container ports rose 67.8% y/y. Imports to East/Gulf Coast ports rose by 48.5%. Those to West Coast ports rose by 89.5%.
Adviser John McCown, who compiles the monthly data for the report, called the March numbers “incredible,” with “most of the top 10 ports reporting their largest year-over gains in memory.”
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Container ports are booming and not just on West Coast
The spotlight is squarely on the avalanche of containerized imports at America’s largest gateway ports: Los Angeles and Long Beach. But it’s not just California. Volumes are also surging at Gulf Coast and East Coast ports.
And it’s not just the U.S. “Chinese ports are completely filled with export cargo as carriers cannot cope with high cargo demand,” reported Alphaliner. In Europe, “vessels are regularly arriving one to two weeks after their reserved berthing window.”
Analysts attribute this unexpected spike to consumers using money to buy goods that they can’t spend on services due to COVID restrictions. Counterintuitively, the coronavirus pandemic has at least temporarily has precipitated a box-port boom.