Glimmer of improvement appears in latest Tacoma and Seattle port cargo statistics
The ports of Tacoma and Seattle on Tuesday offered the first glimmer of economic hope after seeing cargo slowdowns fueled by the pandemic and U.S.-China trade war.
The ports in September had their best month so far this year with the highest monthly container volume since October 2019, according to cargo statistics provided by the Northwest Seaport Alliance.
Full imports, still down 6.8 percent from 2019, saw their best month since September last year.
Imports were up 13.6 percent over August totals, driven by businesses bulking up inventory as stores stock up for the holidays.
Exports also were up 21.9 percent over August.
Tacoma/Seattle handled 308,682 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in September, down 11.1 percent from 2019.
Despite the uptick, the NWSA reports that 2020 is still running ahead of 2019 in terms of canceled sailings, 59 through last month, more than in 2019 which saw 58.
In two bits of good news, the NWSA announced more funding for an ongoing project and a new agricultural export development.
The NWSA recently received a $10.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation for the Terminal 5 modernization project in Seattle.
“This grant will support on-terminal rail infrastructure improvements and the expansion of refrigerated container plug capacity. The first phase of the T-5 project is expected to be completed in spring 2021,” according to Tuesday’s NWSA update.
“This is going to help us deliver on Terminal 5, and make Terminal 5 one of the premier terminals on the whole West Coast,” NWSA CEO John Wolfe told reporters.
A new intermodal rail service from Minot, North Dakota, also has launched to bring “new, additional cargo to the gateway and support our customers shipping U.S. agricultural exports,” according to the NWSA.
Wolfe said Tuesday that the first arrival would be later this month.
“Essentially what it does is it provides regular rail service into Minot and provides empty container equipment available for the exporters in that community,” he said. “And many of those exporters are egg exports that are moving back from Minot into the Seattle, Tacoma gateway for export to markets abroad.
“So, this service will bring a new additional cargo to the gateway and support more of those family wage jobs in the Puget Sound region.”
The NWSA also continues to monitor the fate of the West Seattle Bridge, which faces repair or replacement after cracks were found rapidly expanding on the high bridge earlier this year.
The high bridge has been closed since that discovery, with freight traffic given priority on the low bridge. But the NWSA sees both the high and low bridges as critical to its own plans with the overhaul of Terminal 5 and the expected resulting rise in truck traffic.
A decision expected from Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan is still to come.
“At this point, we do not have sufficient information from the city to make an informed judgment about the options that have been under study for some time,” said Peter Steinbrueck, Port of Seattle commission president and NWSA co-chair at Tuesday’s briefing with reporters.
“We believe that both of these pathways, replacement versus repair, should be continued to be studied and developed further so that we can make the most informed choices there.”
“We do look forward to learning more from the city, and the weeks ahead we expect that to occur,” he added.
According to the NWSA in figures provided Tuesday:
▪ Breakbulk cargo volumes are up 8.2 percent from last year;
▪ Auto volumes are down 25 percent year over year.
▪ Total overall container volumes for this year are down 16.8 percent from 2019.
▪ For the domestic trade, total year-to-date volumes dropped 6.7 percent. Alaska volumes declined 7.9 percent, partially reflected by cruise season cancellations. Hawaii volumes were down 0.6 percent.
More details available at the NWSA’s statistics webpage.
