![]() Those encouraging numbers are only part of the story, however, and no one at the ports is declaring victory yet or seeing an end to the supply-chain disruptions caused by the unprecedented volume of imports from Asia. The so-called dwell time a container sits around on average before it gets picked up has fallen by more than half from late October and there are no longer dozens of ships at anchor outside the ports waiting for weeks before they can berth and offload their cargo. The backlog of containers with furniture, clothing, electronics and other imports that were piling up at the largest port complex outside Asia last summer and fall has been dwindling. All rights reserved.LOS ANGELES (CN) - The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which last year became the focal point of the massive supply-chain meltdown that left store shelfs empty and cranked up inflation, have been making much progress in recent months addressing some of the most acute bottlenecks on the docks, but many underlying problems persist. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. Is Instacart Headed To Be America's Top Grocer? Inside California's container-ship traffic jam: see story here.Ĭlick here for options trades from BenzingaĪtlas Air's Leasing Unit To Help Icelandair Convert 767s To Freighters New video shows massive scope of California box-ship traffic jam: see story here. MORE ON CONTAINERS: California port pileup leaves old records in the dust: see story here. We're going to get them done sooner - add more ship-to-shore cranes and more berths so we can better handle this type of volume in the future." Click for more FreightWaves/American Shipper articles by Greg Miller So, what we're doing now is advancing expansion plans we had targeted to happen over the next five years. "We're seeing volume this year we didn't expect to see until 2025. We're probably going to add 600,000-700,000 TEUs in one year, which is incredible. If we annualized that, we'd be running at a pace of over 6 million TEUs. "If you look at our volume last week, it was yet another throughput record for us. We've been up double digits for months now," he said. "Our March to date is up 32.5% year-over-year. Meanwhile, the import boom continues apace. ![]() "We've made a tremendous amount of progress, which has opened things up and allowed us to work vessels and turn them around more quickly." The number of containers in the facility is already back down to 64,000. "Essentially what we've done is reduce the queue by more than one vessel per day," he said. Lynch pointed out that the number of ships at anchor has been reduced by 36% in the past six days. "While our business was up 20%, our inventory was up 50-60%."īecause weather played such a big role in Savannah's congestion, it has been able to bounce back quickly. "That is unheard of," he said, noting that the usual level was 50,000-60,000 containers. (Extra loaders are ships not in a regular service added to carry incremental volume.)Īt one point in February, there were 83,000 containers on the terminal grounds. Lynch said that there were six or seven extra-loader arrivals last month. All of which coincided with the same surge in import volume being seen at all American ports. "We had vessel bunching compounded by fog," he said. On top of that, winter storms caused delays for ships coming through the Port of New York/New Jersey, which caused subsequent arrivals in Savannah to bunch up. Georgia Ports Authority's Griff Lynch (Photo: Georgia Ports Authority) The CMA Marco Polo - with a capacity of 16,022 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) - has been stuck at anchor the longest, since Feb. As of Wednesday, there were 31 at anchor. The number of container ships in San Pedro Bay has averaged around 30 since the start of the year and level remains stubbornly high. In an interview with American Shipper on Wednesday, Georgia Ports Authority (GPA) Executive Director Griff Lynch explained why the situation off Savannah is not the same as the one off the West Coast - and why his traffic jam is already easing. The common denominator is a massive surge in U.S. But that's not the whole story: Anchorages are bloated with box ships elsewhere along the West Coast, in Oakland and British Columbia, and on the East Coast off Savannah, Georgia. The spotlight has focused on the armada of container ships stuck in California's San Pedro Bay, awaiting berths in Los Angeles and Long Beach.
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