The News
The unofficial end of summer is closing in on us soon. Kids back to school, vacation season winding down, upcoming Labor Day Holiday in both the USA and Canada. A couple things that we had found worthy of talking about this week.
NY-NJ terminal alters free time to prod Saturday gate usage
From last week
“The move by Maher Terminals effectively shortens the time a shipper is given to remove their cargo from the port before fees kick in, while putting pressure on motor carriers and warehouses to operate longer hours. My takeaway is that the industry needs to understand that containers are moved by human drivers, not machines. While creating more available weekend hours and encouraging them to use weekend gates, the impact may not be as great as hoped.”
This was an article that came out today in JOC.
Saturday gates have only accounted for about 5 percent of total truck transactions, according to data from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Trouble in the Pacific Northwest. It appears that the labor negotiations have stalled on the west coast based on recent reports. The negotiations between dockworkers and employers are at a standstill, because of a fight between two unions over who maintains equipment at a terminal at the Port of Seattle.
Equipment = Chassis. Remember the ILWU contract covers all west coast ports so this will not affect LA/LGB.
Overall volumes across North America and be at the highest level in well over a month. Based upon the charts it looks like vessel ETAs peak around September 1st just in time for the long holiday weekend.
- NY/NJ sees another boost toward the end of next week. It was reported that 200,000 empties still need to be swept, so expect chassis to continue to be an issue in this market for a minimum of a couple of weeks.
- Baltimore volumes remain elevated. 20’ and 40’ chassis continue to be an issue.
- Norfolk gets a bump of containers expected around September 1st
- Charleston has a spike coming next week. Chassis MAY be an issue? Just remember 20’ chassis don’t grow on trees. Especially tri-axles. Looks like CHS is getting the bump as SAV gets caught up with the vessels at anchor.
- Vancouver – the biggest thing to report in Vancouver is the vessel waiting times. In most cases over 15 days at anchor. Containers are stockpiled at terminals and rail back ups have caused vessels to see extended anchor time.
- LA/Long Beach charts show a large divergence?? Long Beach is up and Los Angeles is down. Check out the link to the charts.
- Seattle is back! Big push in volume next week. Just make note of the above comments about union negotiations. Could there be a labor slow down?
Slowdown
- Savannah continues to work through vessels at anchor. It looks like they have less volume hitting so in the coming weeks hopefully the backlog of ships at anchor will clear.
- Houston is getting back to “normal”. Meaning throughout is decent and there is almost immediate drayage capacity.
- Oakland takes another breather.
Drayage capacity is not that bad right now actually. At least there is driver capacity. It’s the chassis that continue to be issues in markets like NY/NJ, Baltimore, Memphis, and Chicago. So even though drivers may be available no chassis = no service.
Did you know?
Port X Logistics has trucks, a warehouse, and yard in Denver, CO. Our large yard allows us to pre-pull containers and help clients avoid rail storage for appointment deliveries. Our Denver team is always available to answer market questions via denver@portxlogistics.com .
For more information, contact the leadership team via letsgetrolling@portxlogistics.com .
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