Long Beach eclipses L.A. in box volume growth for 2015

Container volumes at the Port of Long Beach grew last year, while the Port of Los Angeles experienced a drop in throughput compared to 2014.    The Port of Los Angeles topped 8 million TEUs, while the Port of Long Beach exceeded 7 million TEUs in 2015, but the cumulative number belied where the growth took place.
   Los Angeles is the largest container port in the United States, but saw its volume drop 2.1 percent last year to 8.1 million TEUs compared with 2014. The decline still represented a significant recovery from the depths of the labor crisis and congestion that gripped West Coast ports a year ago, when cargo throughput fell more than 20 percent in some months.
   December cargo volumes also dinged the full-year figures. The port handled 626,276 TEUs, a decrease of 4.9 percent compared to December 2014. Imports were down 4.5 percent to 321,407 TEUs, while exports fell 13.7 percent to 131,239 TEUs. The port authority blamed the negative growth on a software installation at one of its cargo terminals, which took it offline for several weeks.
   The Port of Long Beach experienced 5.4 percent container growth in 2015 on the heels of six consecutive months of volume increases, the port authority reported Thursday. Long Beach ended the year with 7.2 million TEUs moving across its docks versus the prior year. In December, the port achieved 5.1 percent growth to 596,448 TEUs on the strength of imports and empties.
   For the year, imports increased 3.1 percent to 3.6 million TEUs, exports fell 4.9 percent to 1.5 million TEUs and empty container traffic rose 20.2 percent. The growth in empties is a function of the strong dollar that is creating a trade imbalance for goods.
   2015 was the third time in in its history that Long Beach has topped 7 million TEUs.