L.A.-Long Beach throughput up 8% in 2005

L.A.-Long Beach throughput up 8% in 2005    Container throughput at the U.S. West Coast ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach increased 8 percent in 2005 to 14.19 million TEUs, thanks largely to double-digit growth at Long Beach.
   The port of Long Beach continued to rapidly expand last year, with 16 percent higher box volume of 6.70 million TEUs from 5.77 million TEUs in 2004. Los Angeles saw its traffic rise just 2.2 percent to 7.48 million TEUs, compared to 7.32 million TEUs in 2004.
   Los Angeles said inbound loaded TEUs decreased 1.5 percent to 3.88 million TEUs in 2005 while inbound loaded traffic at Long Beach jumped 13.3 percent to 3.34 million TEUs. Total inbound loaded TEUs for both ports increased 4.3 percent to 7.22 million TEUs.
   Outbound loaded traffic at Los Angeles was up 3.6 percent to 1.17 million TEUs. Long Beach increased its outbound loaded traffic 21.2 percent to 1.22 million TEUs. The two ports’ combined outbound traffic of full containers rose 11.9 percent to 2.39 million TEUs last year.
   Long Beach saw its number of empty containers soar 20 percent to 2.14 million TEUs. Empty box traffic handled at Los Angeles increased 8 percent to 2.43 million TEUs.
   The proportion of empty containers overall for the two major ports increased to 32 percent in 2005 from 31 percent in 2004.