NRF: Flow Steady Despite Record Container Port Traffic

October 11, 2006  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in on October 2006 Record traffic this summer at major container ports serving U.S. retailers hasn’t resulted in significant back-ups for shipments to stores, according to the the latest Port Tracker report from the National Retail Federation and Global Insight, which includes port activity for the month of August.

Port Tracker doesn’t expect any slowdown this fall.

“We are now in the height of peak season, with October volumes expected to be the highest of any month this year,” Global Insight Economist Paul Bingham said. “The ports are operating without congestion, and truck and rail systems are handling the record volumes well. We expect the ports to be able to handle these volumes without significant congestion, and we expect continued acceptable performance over the next six months.”

Port Tracker covers the ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach, Oakland, Tacoma and Seattle on the West Coast; and New York/New Jersey, Hampton Roads, Charleston and Savannah on the East Coast. Those ports are currently rated “low” for congestion, the same as last month’s report.

Nationwide, the ports surveyed handled 1.44 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of container traffic in August, the most recent month for which actual numbers are available. The figure was up 5 percent from July and 8.4 percent from August 2005.

With volume continuing to grow, the August number already has topped 2005’s year-long peak of 1.37 million TEUs, set last October. September is forecast at 1.4 million TEUs; up 4.9 percent from September 2005; and October at 1.46 million TEUs a 6.5 percent increase over October 2005.

Looking ahead NRF and Global insight predict the following activity at major U.S. container ports. After the holiday-driven shipping season peaks in October, volume over the six-month period of the forecast will begin to decline to 1.35 million TEUs in November, still 6.7 percent above activity the same month last year; 1.3 million TEUs in December, 8.3 percent higher than December 2005; 1.26 million TEUs in January 2007, up 3.2 percent from January this year; and 1.19 million TEUs in February, up 11.6 percent from February 2006.

Port Tracker, which is produced by the economic research, forecasting and analysis firm Global Insight for NRF, examines in-bound container volume, the availability of trucks and railroad cars to move cargo out of the ports, labor conditions and other factors that affect cargo movement and congestion.