What Is Happening at the Port?

The Port of Long Beach cargo volumes fall for the fourth month in a row.

LOS ANGELES—For the fourth consecutive month, cargo volumes at the Port of Long Beach have fallen. October container volumes fell 6.2% year-over-year, after year-over-year decreases in July, August and September. The Port of Long Beach says that the decline is the effect of the Hanjin Bankruptcy, the world’s seventh largest shipping line.

“In the last two months, we’ve seen some of the cargo that had been arriving on Hanjin ships to Port of Long Beach instead going on other ships to the Port of Los Angeles, and this was expected given the bankruptcy and the alliances,” Lee Peterson of the Port of Long Beach, tells GlobeSt.com.  In October, the port moved a total of 581,808 TEUs with export TEUs down 1.2% and imports down 3.7%. Empty containers saw the largest drop at 13.8% or 158,327 boxes.