Ocean shipping: Port Tracker report says 2009 retail container volumes will be lowest in seven years
Jeff Berman, Group News Editor -- Logistics Management, 8/25/2009
Editor’s note: This article originally appeared on August 25; it has been updated with additional reporting.
WASHINGTON—Monthly declines for import cargo volume at major U.S. container ports remain largely down, with total volume expected to come in at 12.3 million containers for 2009—an 18.8 percent annual decline from 2008’s 15.2 million TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units) and the lowest total in seven years since 2002’s 11.6 million TEU—according to the monthly Port Tracker report by IHS Global Insight and the National Retail Federation.
Following May, which cracked the million container mark at 1.04 million TEU for the first time in four months, June volume was 1.01 million TEU. This output is down 2 percent sequentially from May and down 22 percent year-over-year. This marks the 24th consecutive month there has been a year-over-year decline, according to the Port Tracker report.
Port trade forecasts in the report cover all containerized trade, not just retail goods, according to IHS Global Insight and the NRF. The ports selected for coverage are those considered most important to retailers, but, for reasons of monitoring the potential for overall congestion in the system, the organizations look at containerized imports, including business-to-business shipments of items like components used in manufacturing or other wholesale goods.
The ports surveyed in the report include: Los Angeles/Long Beach, Oakland, Tacoma, Seattle, New York/New Jersey, Hampton Roads, Charleston, and Savannah.
NRF Vice President for Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold said in a statement that the national recession has clearly been reflected in the volume of cargo U.S. retailers have imported this year. But he pointed out there is some good news, too, based on the fact that while monthly numbers are still down they should be shifting from double-digit declines to single-digit declines by year’s end.
And IHS Global Insight Analyst and Port Tracker Author Paul Bingham said in an interview that the biggest take away of this report for shippers is that the early signs of the start of the recovery in volumes are now in the forecast before the end of the year.
“Monthly volumes are still very weak but are projected to begin to increase slowly off the bottom at the depth of the business cycle we saw earlier this year,” said Bingham.
He added that the bottom for monthly volumes is now behind us. And the combination of retailer ordering hesitancy due to weak household consumption, weak business-to-business sales, and inventory draw-downs has started to moderate, although some pent-up demand plus inventories will need to be replenished at some point.
Looking ahead, the Port Tracker report predicts that July volume will come in at 1.06 million TEU; August at 1.09 million TEU; and September at 1.08 million TEU, which are each forecasted to be down 20 percent year-over-year. October, typically the busiest month of the year, is forecasted at 1.12 million TEU, which is off 18 percent from 2008, and November at 1.05 million TEU and December at 1.02 million TEU, are projected to be down 15 percent and 3.8 percent, respectively.
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