Biggest US port complex to work nights, weekends to cut logjam

Bloomberg

Ports operating in the US’s biggest gateway for trade with Asia will extend night hours and work weekends to clear port delays amid record volumes.
The port of Los Angeles will expand weekend operating gate hours while neighbouring Long Beach will extend the hours during which trucks can pick up and return containers, they said in a joint statement.
The hubs, located in San Pedro Bay, California, move about 40% of all containerised cargo entering the US each year and about 30% of all containerised exports. Bottlenecks at maritime operations have exacerbated capacity constraints in shipping and are pushing trans-Pacific freight rates to all-time highs.
Both ports are also working closely with the White House Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force “to alleviate bottlenecks and speed up the movement of goods to consumers, while expanding export opportunities for US exporters, including agricultural producers,” they said.
The number of container ships waiting to enter the twin ports reached an all-time high of 65 vessels this week, carrying potential payloads of cargo boxes that would stretch halfway across the country if lined up end to end.
The average wait was 8.7 days compared with 6.2 days in mid-August, according to L.A. port data. The ship waiting the longest arrived on August 23.
Outside the neighbouring ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, the queue had lengthened by 10 vessels over the past week and was expected rise even more in coming days, according to officials who monitor marine traffic in San Pedro Bay. The average wait was 8.7 days compared with 6.2 in mid-August, according to LA port data. The ship waiting the longest arrived on August 23.
The flotilla, either anchored outside the ports or drifting further offshore until an anchorage spot is available, has a combined capacity to carry nearly 400,000 20-foot equivalent units of containers, according to data from the Marine Exchange of Southern California & Vessel Traffic Service Los Angeles and Long Beach. Both ports have handled a monthly average of about 862,000 inbound containers this year.
According to Hong Kong-based Freightos, an online shipping marketplace, US-to-China transit times for ocean freight reached 71 days door-to-door this month, up from 40 days two years ago.

Transpacific Traffic
Bottlenecks are exacerbating capacity constraints in shipping and pushing transpacific freight rates to all-time highs.
Shipping a 40-foot container of goods from Shanghai to Los Angeles cost $12,424 this week, triple the spot price at the start of the year, according to the Drewry World Container Index. Freightos, which measures container rates plus premiums and surcharges, shows a 40-foot box soaring past $20,000, compared with less than $4,000 in early 2021.
The beneficiaries include AP Moller-Maersk A/S, the world’s largest container carrier. The Danish company raised its full-year profit forecast, signalling that consumer demand in Europe and the US will remain at current levels at least through the rest of the year.