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Winter weather is everywhere, with some extreme weather this week – plenty of snow and ice, ice, baby. Garden City Terminal and Ocean Terminal: Truck gates will be closed today with Truck gate reopening focused for Friday. GCT plans to have weekend gates: all gates open from 0600-1800 Saturday and Sunday with full reefer services available both days (with normal Monday-Friday cutoffs). No weekend gates for OT (since no vessels there next week). Please visit the GAPorts.com website for latest updates.
SC Port terminals in Charleston will be closed for motor carriers on Thursday, January 23, 2025. Inland Port Dillon and Inland Port Greer will operate under normal hours, updates on the ports reopening can be found on the SCPA website
Several Texas ports began to resume operations on Wednesday, after winter storm “Enzo” moved out of the state. The port of Freeport had resumed vessel operations on Wednesday morning, while the ports of Houston and Galveston reopened to vessel traffic later that day. The storm brought several inches of snow to Texas, Louisiana and Florida, where extreme winter conditions are rare. It forced the shutdown of school districts, businesses and roads in large cities including Houston and New Orleans but has so far caused minor interruptions to energy operations. Freeport, Galveston and Houston had reduced ship movements on Tuesday amid low temperatures and snow. Vessel movements at the Port of New Orleans were not anticipated to begin until Thursday, a shipping agency advisory said, citing the New Orleans Board of Trade.
Weather uncertainties can greatly change your day-to-day operations. Will it ever stop? Yo, I don’t know? We urge you to subscribe to the Port X Logistics LLC LinkedIn page for the most up to date weather reports, as well as up to date news and solutions for your supply chain, and to get on the list for this weekly Market Update Newsletter and future industry related news sent direct to your inbox email Marketing@portxlogistics.com
Houthi communiques have confirmed that the group will cease attacks on most vessels in the Red Sea, continuing to target ships owned by Israeli companies or flying the Israeli flag. The development defies what many expected from a group which, according to some estimates, has managed to extort more than $2 billion in pay-offs from shipping lines since it began the attacks. This development sets the stage for Red Sea transits to resume, leaving the shipping industry to figure out how to manage the resulting, according to Drewry estimates, tonnage oversupply of 25%.
Xeneta chief analyst Peter Sand expects a period of “chaos” as schedules are changed, similar to that which was seen at the beginning of the Red Sea crisis, with TEU-mile demand, even accounting for an expected volume growth this year, potentially down 11% compared with 2024. “Ships will not be where they are supposed to be and will arrive at ports much earlier (or later) than scheduled,” he writes in an analysis. “If large numbers of ships arrive at ports at the same time, it will cause massive delays and congestion that ripple across ocean supply chains.”
Some shipping lines seem reluctant to return to the Suez routes. Last week, Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd made it clear they would not be rushing back to the Red Sea. Insurers, too, would take some time to adjust to any resumption of Red Sea transits. Executives from shipping, insurance and retail industries are not ready to return to the Red Sea trade route because of uncertainty over whether the Houthis would continue to attack shipping.
Jakob Larsen, chief safety & security officer at BIMCO, said in a statement: “We might see some ships resume Red Sea transits in the coming weeks” – But it will require fairly strong indications of ceasefire stability before shipping in general resumes transits to pre-conflict levels. “The container lines will probably take a little longer.”
Oil fell more than 1% on Thursday after U.S. President Donald Trump urged Saudi Arabia and OPEC to bring down its cost during his address at the World Economic Forum. Uncertainty over how proposed tariffs and energy policies would affect global economic growth and energy demand also weighed on prices. Prices dipped after President Trump announced he would be asking Saudi Arabia and OPEC to bring down the cost of oil during his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. On the U.S. oil inventory front, crude stocks rose by 958,000 barrels in the week ended January 17th, according to sources citing American Petroleum Institute figures on Wednesday.
Import TEUs are up 1.44% this week from last week – with the highest volumes coming into Los Angeles at 20.8%, Long Beach at 16.6% and Newark at 11.1%. The Port of Long Beach set a new record in 2024, handling 9.6 million cargo containers without any disruptions or backlogs. The record performance represents a 20.3% increase from the previous year and surpasses the port’s 2021 record of 9.38 million TEUs by 2.8%.
In a detailed breakdown of the record-setting year, imports surged by 24.3% to 4.7 million TEUs, while exports saw a decline of 5.9% to 1.2 million TEUs. Empty container movement increased significantly by 26.6% to 3.7 million TEUs. December proved particularly strong, with the port handling 861,006 TEUs, marking a 21.3% increase year-over-year and setting a new December record. This capped off the port’s busiest quarter ever, with 2.7 million TEUs moved between October and December. Beyond cargo records, the Port of Long Beach continues to strengthen its environmental commitments. CEO Mario Cordero highlighted the port’s progress in transitioning to zero emissions operations. The Green Port Policy, implemented in 2005, has so far yielded 92% reduction in diesel emissions, 71% decrease in nitrogen oxides, and 98% reduction in sulfur oxides. “The Green Port Policy was the result of a grassroots movement at its very best,” noted Harbor Commission President Bonnie Lowenthal. Looking ahead, the port is advancing several innovative projects, including the construction of “America’s Green Gateway” and a partnership with Toyota Motor North America for a groundbreaking “Tri-gen” system. Additionally, plans are underway for Pier Wind, a 400-acre terminal project expected to generate $8 billion in labor income and $14.5 billion in economic output by 2045.
What’s happening at the ports and rails?:
You can find all the information on the below link where we cover port congestion, chassis issues and capacity lead times weekly at all U.S. and Canada Ports and rail heads on our website – click on the link below
CLICK HERE For Port & Rail Updates
Savannah/Charleston: Snow and ice causing Port closures will impact operations through the remainder of the week and weekend gates will be opened – Check with your steamship line on updated free time dates for imports and empty returns. Orders are piling up quickly as a race to get capacity for lingering containers – Contact Kyle and the team sav@portxlogistics.com to get your orders in, we currently have capacity for early next week. The Port X Logistics South Atlantic team is built to help support your Savannah shipments, we have a drayage fleet of 12 trucks with service to and from Savannah, Charleston and Jacksonville ports as well as container yard space. We also have a full service transload warehouse in Savannah and can handle last-minute urgent transloads and cross docks.
Houston: The Houston ports are now open and operating with longer driver wait times and mild congestion due to inclement weather earlier in the week. Our Houston team has both drayage operations and a Houston transload warehouse. If you need drayage in Houston (And Dallas!) or transloading in Houston including heavy and hard to unload cargo like coils and pipes we have you covered. Contact letsgetrolling@portxlogistics.com for current drayage capacity and we are wide open for new transload orders.
Chicago: The cold weather has been causing delays and longer than normal driver wait times at all ramps this week. Despite even the long wait times, our Chicago asset drayage team has full capacity to get your Chicago containers moving – we have 80 trucks and secured yard space and we are able to obtain special permits to haul heavy containers. For Chicago drayage capacity and supreme customer service contact the team letsgetrolling@portxlogistics.com
Did you know? TPM25 is getting closer and this will be our third year as a sponsor? We couldn’t be more excited! Every time, we walk away reminded of why TPM is the place to be.
There’s nothing quite like it when it comes to bringing industry friends together at this scale. The connections, the insights, and the thoughts shared are all unmatched.
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If you’d like to get involved with any of our activities the week of the event (we have a bunch) feel free to reach out to marketing@portxlogistics.com and we’ll connect you with the team for an awesome time!
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