North American ports

Oakland port terminals plan to subsidize Saturday operation of truck gates by imposing a weekday gate fee modeled on one pioneered by the decade-old PierPass program in Southern California.

The South Carolina Ports Authority doubled its operating profit during its just-ended fiscal year, and opened its current fiscal year in July with an 11.6 percent increase in loaded container volume.

Port of Virginia shippers have longer to drop off and pick up cargo after the state port authority announced extended gate hours in preparation for peak season this year. It’s a preemptive strike for the U.S. Southeast port that faced “significant challenges” during the summer-fall season in 2014.

A completely revamped arbitration system in the new longshore contract will significantly reduce the productivity-busting work slowdowns that have plagued West Coast ports since the previous contract in 2008, and will pave the way for terminal automation in the years ahead, according to Pacific Maritime Association President James McKenna.

Having just experienced its busiest July ever, the Virginia International Gateway Saturday closed its gates to truckers because of a power outage. However, vessel and yard activity will continue normally, the port authority announced.

West Coast ports this summer appear to have slowed the bleeding after a year of cargo losses due to contentious longshore contract negotiations, dock worker slowdowns and employer retaliation.

Containerized cargo volumes at the Port of Los Angeles dropped 1.5 percent year-over-year in July, with a 16.4 percent drop in loaded export containers accounting for much of that decline.

It will be roughly two weeks before U.S. ports can truly determine how much impact the explosions at Tianjin, the world’s tenth-busiest port, will have on traffic.

Imports at the Port of Oakland were up for the fifth consecutive month in July, which is good and bad news for the port, which has struggled to find enough hands to meet its growing demand in recent months.

The Port of Houston hopes its smooth handling of thousands of diverted Asian import containers this year will convince shippers to stick with the Texas port instead of returning to more familiar West Coast intermodal routes.

The Port of Long Beach in July had its best month ever, as peak-season cargo began to build and some cargo shifted to Long Beach from other ports.

The average time to complete a trucking transaction at Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex in July fell by four minutes from the prior month, but no one is celebrating.

Port of Virginia CEO John F. Reinhart said high volumes are expected through the summer-fall peak season after July traffic rose 8.8 percent year-over-year.

A niche shipping service between Antwerp and Cleveland is providing other Great Lakes ports with a sprinkling of containerized cargo.

Customs broker A.N. Deringer is billing its new less-than-containerload service from Hong Kong to Toronto as faster than via U.S. West Coast offerings, and free of U.S. harbor maintenance taxes and customs paperwork.

New York-New Jersey truckers and APM Terminals are exploring a pilot program that would allow drayage drivers to make expedited pickups of containers that have been pre-sorted in blocks for a single customer.

Ports in the U.S. Southeast — the country’s fastest growing — are aggressively spreading their intermodal rail reach into the hinterland, giving shippers facing higher truck rates and capacity shortages an added incentive.

APM Terminal’s Elizabeth terminal at the Port of New York-New Jersey will reopen 6 a.m. Monday after closing Friday because of the death of a dockworker.

Import cargo volumes at the largest U.S. container gateways are forecast to rise 3.6 percent year-over-year this month as shippers gear up for the beginning of the peak season.

APM Terminal’s Elizabeth terminal at the Port of New York-New Jersey was closed Friday afternoon after a top loader struck and killed a female dockworker.

West Coast ports in June continued their slow recovery from labor problems that caused them to bleed cargo earlier this year, although total container volume in June was still down 7 percent year-over-year.

The Port of Philadelphia, one of the fastest growing import ports in the U.S., is one step closer to building a cargo facility after it announced a request for qualifications.

SeaLand and APL have selected Port Everglades as the first and last U.S. call for their recently launched Americas joint service.

Eight ports on the U.S. East Coast made substantial gains in import market share in the first six months of 2015. A booming import market, West Coast diversions tied to the recent labor crisis, and port investments helped East and Gulf Coast ports edge out all but one of their West Coast counterparts.

The commissioners of the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma have given the final OK needed to launch an alliance aimed at helping the former rivals stave off growing competition, and regain market share.

For most ports on the U.S. West Coast, late 2014 and early 2015 was a year of seemingly-unending congestion and slumping cargo traffic. Not so at California’s Port of Hueneme, which just reported its highest cargo year in its 78-year history.

The Port of Miami posted double-digit container volume growth in June, a testament to the port’s concerted effort to boost organic growth and preserve business diverted from the U.S. West Coast during the port congestion crisis in late 2014 and early 2015.

Long Beach Container Terminal, which will open a terminal early next year the Port of Long Beach has billed as the world’s greenest container terminal, received the Mayor’s Green Port award Wednesday at ceremonies marking the 10th anniversary of the Long Beach Green Port program.

Port Canaveral this week broke ground on what will soon be the port’s first multimodal inland facility, part of the Florida port’s ongoing campaign to snag container traffic from other U.S. East Coast ports.

The Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners Monday elected Lori Ann Farrell Harrison as its new president. The commission president chairs board meetings and represents the port before the public.

Los Angeles-Long Beach is moving slowly toward a dual system of drayage in which some drivers are becoming unionized employees, while others prefer to remain independent contractors. Eventually, the result could be a sufficient pool of drivers to serve the 13 container terminals in the largest U.S. port complex, resulting in service and pricing consistency for the shippers that depend on harbor drivers.

The Port of New York and New Jersey's container volume during the first half of 2015 rose 13.4 percent from a year earlier, putting the East Coast's largest port on pace to exceed its record 2014 volume.

The Port Authority of New York has agreed to several antipollution measures while it continues work on future phases of a program to replace older trucks at the East Coast’s largest port. But environmentalists aren’t content.

Labor and port opposition to legislation that would require U.S. ports to provide monthly productivity reports have stripped out what is the arguably the crux of the bill: productivity reports during negotiations with unionized port labor.

All sectors of the Southern California transportation community are confident that they will handle the spike in container volume this peak season, but longer-term challenges with big ships, carrier alliances, truck turn times and rail performance remain a concern.

State and federal officials in Virginia broke ground on two major projects this week aimed at relieving congestion at the state port after delays hit near-unprecedented levels earlier this year.

PierPass Inc. on its 10th anniversary Thursday was basking in the warmth of comments from political and environmental leaders recognizing the program that was created by the terminal operators in Los Angeles-Long Beach for successfully mitigating daytime port-generated traffic.