Container shipping traffic at the Port of Tacoma was up last month, reversing a 6.6 percent decline in December.
That improvement over January 2011’s results was propelled by an 8.3 percent increase in foreign containerized cargo imports.
The volume in domestic containers between Tacoma and Alaska and Hawaii, continued weaker by 5 percent, the port said. Overall international and domestic volumes together totaled 109,597 container units, a 4.1 percent boost over January 2011’s 105,289.
Will January’s improvement carry on through the year? If this year is like last, it won’t be easy. Last year began with four months of growth.
That was followed by two months of decline.
Traffic was up the next month, July, and then it fell in August. The trend turned upward in September, October and November, but went negative in December.
The net result of eight months of growth and four of decline was a modest improvement to 1.49 million container units for the year, a 2.3 percent improvement over 2010.
The port still has a lot of ground to cover if it wants to reach the levels of 2006 when it handled more than two million container units.
Container shipping is the port’s principal trade, but other categories of cargoes play a significant role in the port’s traffic picture.
Most of those categories were up in January, according to port statistics.
Log exports, despite warnings in the wood products business that China’s appetite for timber is weakening, were up 59.6 percent in January over the same month last year.
The port handled 28,804 short tons of logs last month compared with 18,051 short tons a year before.
Breakbulk shipments, cargoes too large or awkwardly shaped to fit inside shipping containers, increased by 65.5 percent in January to 10,575 short tons.
Grain shipments were up 6.7 percent. Total tonnage increased by 8.4 percent and vessel calls, 78, last month jumped by 11.4 percent.
Besides domestic container traffic, one other category, automobiles, was on the down side last month.
Port statistics show the number of automobiles handled at port terminals in January was 7,421, down from 10,064 a year ago. That’s a 26.3 percent decline.
John Gillie: 253-597-8663 john.gillie@thenewstribune.com
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