NRF and Global Insight: Expect record TEU volumes at U.S. ports

NRF and Global Insight: Expect record TEU volumes at U.S. ports    Traffic is growing so rapidly at the nation’s major retail container ports that August could tie October as the busiest month of the year, according to the August Port Tracker report released Tuesday by the National Retail Federation and Global Insight.
   “The ports are already in peak season,” said Global Insight Economist Paul Bingham in a statement. “Nationally, August volumes are expected to be as high as the peak projected for October, and we’re going to see the record numbers continue into fall. The increase in volume is going to challenge everyone’s ability to perform, but the ports themselves and the truck and rail systems are all operating O.K. so far. We expect shippers will make it through peak season without significant congestion.”
   All ports covered by Port Tracker — Los Angeles-Long Beach, Oakland, Tacoma and Seattle on the West Coast, and New York-New Jersey, Hampton Roads, Charleston and Savannah on the East Coast — are rated “low” for congestion, the same as last month.
   Nationwide, the ports surveyed handled 1.36 million TEUs of container traffic in June, the most recent month for which actual numbers are available. The figure was up 3.5 percent from May and 8.6 percent from June 2005.
   June’s number was just under 2005’s year-long peak of 1.37 million TEU set last October, and numbers well above the 2005 peak are expected to be hit through the remainder of this summer and fall. July is forecast at 1.42 million (up 10.3 percent from July 2005), August at 1.46 million (up 9.9 percent from August 2005), September at 1.42 million (up 5.7 percent from September 2005) and October at 1.46 million (up 6.5 percent from October 2005).
   As in past years, numbers are expected to fall off after October, dropping to 1.35 million in November (up 7.1 percent from November 2005) and 1.3 million in December (up 8.6 percent from December 2005).