Divergent fortunes again for SoCal ports in July

   Container volume at the Southern California continued on their divergent paths in July, with throughput growing in Los Angeles and declining in Long Beach.
   Total volume at Los Angeles grew 5.5 percent year-on-year in July to 726,375 TEUs. Loaded inbound volume rose nearly 4 percent to 371,859 TEUs, while outbound volume was flat, growing 0.3 percent to 165,581 TEUs.
   Year-to-date, Los Angeles has seen total volume grow 6.3 percent to 4.7 million TEUs.
   In Long Beach, total throughput fell 8.8 percent year-on-year in July to 522,486 TEUs, with import volume down 10 percent to 261,233 TEUs. Export volume fell 1.9 percent to 124,574 TEUs.
   Year-to-date, volume at Long Beach is down 5.5 percent to 3.3 million TEUs. That means nearly 59 percent of containers moving through Southern California now pass through Los Angeles. In 2007, the high-water mark for Long Beach, the breakdown was 53 percent for Los Angeles and 47 percent for Long Beach.
   “The decrease in volumes is partly due to the slow national economic recovery, which led to the elimination of ship calls by several niche service strings,” the Port of Long Beach said in a statement.