Los Angeles Reports Strong Box Growth For May And April

by Lloyd's List - last modified Jun 19, 2012 12:47 PM

Los Angeles, the top US box gateway, saw total container volumes rise 5.5% in May to 731,300 teu, the busiest May in the port’s history.

However, neighbouring Long Beach, number two in the US for containers, reported an overall 7.2% drop in import, export and empty boxes to 498,000 teu.

For the 2012 calendar year to May, Los Angeles has seen an increase of almost 6% in total volumes to 3.3m teu, while Long Beach is down 6.1% to 2.3m teu over the same five months compared with 2011.

Port of Los Angeles said these figures reflected the busiest May in port history, surpassing May 2006 volumes of 695,900 teu. The port also had the strongest April in its history last month.

“As we enter the cargo peak season in the latter summer months, some business is returning to the port and three new strings of vessels from Asia began calling on Long Beach in late May,” a port statement read.

“Combined, the three services are expected to add as much as 500,000 teu through the remainder of the calendar year.”
A closer look at the box trends for the west coast cluster shows that in May, Los Angeles’ loaded inbound container traffic rose 2.7% to 371,000 teu, while loaded outbound was up by just 0.5% to 185,000 teu.

Total empty boxes were up by 18.9% to 175,500 teu.

For Long Beach, all three sectors were down in May. Loaded inbound fell 9.2% to 250,000 teu, while loaded outbound was down by just 0.8% to 129,000 teu, and empties declined 9.6% to 119,000 teu.

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