Port of NY/NJ box volumes drop 1.9% in 2016

The largest cargo gateway on the U.S. East Coast handled 4.56 million TEUs of loaded containers for the full year, a 1 percent decline from 2015 levels, according to recent data from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.    The Port of New York and New Jersey saw total container volumes fall 1.9 percent to 6.25 million TEUs for the full year in 2016, according to recent data from the port authority.
   The largest cargo gateway on the U.S. East Coast reported a 5.8 percent year-over-year increase in throughput in December to 528,132 TEUs, and the strongest November in the port’s history, but the growth was offset by declines in the previous eight consecutive months.
   Loaded import volumes at the port slipped 0.4 percent to 3.2 million TEUs compared with the previous year, while imports of empty containers jumped 12.6 percent to 26,195 TEUs. Exports slipped 2.6 percent to 1.36 million TEUs for laden containers and 4.3 percent to 1.67 million TEUs for empties.
   Rail lifts at the port’s intermodal terminals, on the other hand, grew 3.4 percent to 540,149 TEUs for the year.
   The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, along with terminal operator GCT USA, in December broke ground on the ExpressRail Port Jersey facility, a ship-to-rail intermodal container transfer facility located adjacent to the recently expanded GCT Bayonne container terminal. Scheduled for completion in mid-2018, the ExpressRail terminal will have a capacity to lift 250,000 import and export containers annually.