Cargo Volumes at West Coast Ports Diminish
Fleets operating within the drayage profession may want to start looking in the general direction of the sunrise, as an interesting phenomenon is happening regarding U.S. imports: some companies are opting to go around the United States rather than through it.
Decrease at Long Beach
Experts estimate that the amount of goods by weight being processed at west coast ports is down 25% from last year.
“Last month [August] we announced that August cargo slowed down following 25 months of record-breaking port volume. And in September, we saw our second month of double-digit declines nearly across the board,” said Gene Seroka, the executive director of the Port of Los Angeles.
Considering the gridlock that was happening in California ports around this time last year, it is not surprising that some companies would be willing to take a longer route to get their goods processed faster.
The fear of another port backlog is not to blame alone, as discussions about worker strikes continue to appear in the news. “Shippers are routing more cargo through the East and Gulf coasts. That is likely to continue until the West Coast labor contract is in place, and that can’t happen soon enough,” Seroka continued.
The one upside to this decreased demand at ports in the Pacific is that wait times for goods to be processed has dropped. Idling time for a container in November 2021 was around 200 hours, and is now down to around 75. At the very least, the ports are operating far more efficiently.
Conclusion
At the start of this article we mentioned that fleets may want to start looking eastward to provide drayage delivery services, but that is only half true. With containers still taking a few days to unload onto trucks, business is still good here on the west coast. In fact, fleets may find it a boon that things are performing much more smoothly, as truckers spend less time waiting and more time getting things done.
Once companies catch wind of the faster processing times, they will likely return to working with these ports to import more goods from Asia.
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