Matson Adjusts Its Sailing Schedule to Increase Whale Safety
U.S.-based Pacific shipping company Matson announced it has adjusted its sailing routes to help reduce the risk of whale strikes off the coast of California.Shipping channels into and out of San Francisco Bay and the Los Angeles/Long Beach port complex transit federally protected national marine sanctuaries. These sanctuaries –Monterey Bay, Greater Farallones, and Cordell Bank national marine sanctuaries–are destination feeding areas for threatened and endangered humpback and blue whales from late spring through the fall.In 2015…
As Shanghai Reopens, California Ports Prepare for Cargo Surge
California port leaders expect imports to rise as Shanghai, home to the world's busiest seaport, emerges from a two-month COVID-19 lockdown.The question is whether that release of pent-up goods will again swamp West Coast ports that have recently emerged from the pandemic's massive cargo wave, they and other experts said.The Port of Shanghai was open during the city's shutdown, but cargo flows still slowed. Area factories that make everything from Tesla electric vehicles to Apple laptops ran out of components and quarantines idled some truckers.As the city returns to normal…
U.S. Labor Secretary Visits Top West Coast Ports as Union Talks Loom
The U.S. labor secretary on Tuesday met with unions and employers at the nation's busiest port complex in Southern California as anxiety builds ahead of next year's contract negotiations covering roughly 22,000 West Coast dockworkers.The contract expires in July, and the stakes are particularly high at the Los Angeles/Long Beach port complex that handles some 40% of U.S. imports. Docks at the side-by-side ports are crowded with cargo boxes and more than four dozen container ships…
US Port's Supply Chain Fix Challenge: Selling 24/7 Shifts
The Port of Los Angeles is beginning the hard work of convincing terminal operators, importers, warehouses owners and trucking firms to embrace moving more cargo at night."It's not a single lever we can pull today to open up all the gates," Executive Director Gene Seroka said on Thursday.On Wednesday, the White House gathered stakeholders including retailers Walmart and Home Depot, logistics firms United Parcel Service and FedEx, and electronics supplier Samsung. The companies…
Union Pacific to Restart Container Shipments from U.S. West Coast Seaports
Union Pacific Corp container shipments from U.S. West Coast seaports to one of the railroad's major hubs in Chicago will restart early next week after a seven-day suspension, Chief Executive Lance Fritz told Reuters on Thursday.The railroad on Sunday night paused cargo shipments from the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland and Tacoma to its Global IV facility in Chicago in a bid to clear "significant congestion.""We're starting to see containers clear, so I anticipate in the seven-day period ...
Crowley Swaps US West Coast Tugs
Crowley Marine Services said it will relocate the tugboat Veteran to the Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach to service all vessels, including large petroleum tank vessels with deep drafts greater than 65 feet calling on Long Beach Berth 121. With a bollard pull rating of over 90 short tons, the powerful Veteran is better suited to serve the very large crude carriers (VLCCs) that are calling more regularly in Long Beach. Tesoro and the Long Beach Pilots are now requiring a tug with…
Los Angeles Pier 400 Ready for Ultra-Large Container Ships
The first of ten ship-to-shore (STS) cranes at the APM Terminals Los Angeles Pier 400 facility was raised 33 feet (10 meters), making it the tallest port crane in North America and will be ready for vessel operations in the next few months. To create an even safer place to work, an additional feature of the upgraded cranes is the installation of Light Emitting Diode (LED) illumination, which will improve operator visibility and accuracy of the cranes’ Optical Character Recognition (OCR) programs. The cranes will use 60% less energy than conventional lighting systems. The crane heightening project is designed to prepare for regular Ultra-Large Container Vessel (ULCV) calls in the trans-Pacific trade lanes, carrying up to 20,000 twenty-foot equivalent containers (TEUs) per vessel.
New Response Partner at Port of Long Beach
T&T Salvage, LLC announced the signing of a consent agreement with the Long Beach Fire Department (LBFD). This agreement permits T&T to include the LBFD's extensive marine firefighting resources in its emergency response network. T&T's network, established to meet United States Coast Guard, Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA 90) requirements, is available to owners and operators of vessels subject to the salvage and marine firefighting regulations contained in OPA 90. The consent agreement, which is the first of its kind to be signed in California, will ensure a coordinated response and minimize the impact of a major marine fire event in the Los Angeles/Long Beach Port Complex.
LA and Long Beach Ports to IncreaseTMF
The West Coast MTO Agreement (WCMTOA) today announced a 2.5 percent increase in the Traffic Mitigation Fee (TMF) at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, in order to address labor cost increases scheduled to take effect on July 1, 2012. Beginning August 1, the TMF will be increased by $1.50 per TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) to $61.50 per twenty-foot container or $123 per forty-foot container. The current TMF rates are $60.00 and $120.00 respectively. On August 1, 2011, the TMF increased for the first time since 2006. The $10 per TEU increase came after hourly labor costs increased more than 31 percent for the same period. At that time, WCMTOA announced that beginning in mid-2012 it would begin adjusting the TMF annually to address labor cost increases.
