Supply-Chain Challenges
While many of the port congestion challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent boom in trade have eased, partially due to slightly lowered volumes but also as a result of proactive measures taken by ports and other partners, supply chain issues continued. Shortages in pharmaceuticals, food products, building materials, and other goods have contributed to inflation and posed difficulties for families and businesses alike. In November 2023, the White House held the inaugural meeting on Supply Chain Resilience, which debuted a list of over 30 actions including establishing the creation of the Council on Supply Chain Resilience, using the Defense Production Act to make more medicine and mitigate drug shortages, and establishing new cross-governmental supply chain data-sharing capabilities. [1]
Throughput measures reflect the amount of TEU handled by a port. In particular, the TEU capacity calling at U.S. ports is a limiting factor of the number of TEUs a port can export or import via containers ships, as it represents all the available container slots of vessels that called at a port. It does not necessarily represent demand. The TEU capacity data presented here is calculated as the average weekly capacity per month. As of September 2023, total TEU capacity calling at U.S. ports was higher than capacity in September of previous years. Annual capacity decreased from 21.9 million TEU in 2021 to 20.6 million TEU in 2022. As Figure 3-3 shows, monthly TEU capacity fell by an average of about 1.9 million TEU in 2020 to 1.71 million in 2022, a decrease of about 190,000 or 10.0 percent. TEU capacity for early-mid 2023 tends to be moving upward with average monthly capacity from January to September of 2 million TEU, an average of 314,316 TEU or 18.7% higher than 2022, and 128,437 TEU or 6.9% higher than 2021.
While TEU capacity has decreased, TEU throughput has increased. As shown in Figure 3-4 monthly TEU throughput at select U.S. container ports peaked at about 4.6 million TEU in May 2022, up 1.7 million TEU or 59.3 percent from the March 2020 low of about 2.9 million TEU. These nine ports were selected because they routinely and consistently provide data concerning TEU’s handled. The greatest increase in TEU’s handled has taken place at the Port of Virginia and Houston Port Authority which experienced a 26.4% and 14.5% increase, respectively, from January 2020 to August 2023. Other ports experienced an increase in TEU’s from early 2020 to early-mid 2021 and 2022 before decreasing. This includes the Port of Long Beach and Port of Los Angeles which experienced a 45% and 26% surge, respectively, from January 2020 to May 2021 before dropping back to January 2020 levels by August 2023. Of the selected ports, the Port of Long Beach, Port of Los Angeles, and Port of New York & New Jersey handled the most TEU’s, with each handling more than 500,000 TEU’s monthly from 2020-2023 at their lowest points.
As of the most recently available data, there were seven container ships awaiting to dock at U.S. ports in late November 2023. In recent months, nearly half of waiting container ships were at the Port of Savannah. [4] In contrast to the high number of ships awaiting to dock at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in 2021 and 2022, no ships were waiting to dock at these ports as of the most recently available data (Figure 3-5). This is down from the peak of more than 150 weekly container ships nationwide in early February 2022. In early 2022, the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach alone had more than one hundred vessels waiting at anchorages in San Pedro Bay, in some cases spending many more days at anchor than at dock. Nationwide container ships awaiting to dock decreased to 12 in June 2023 before increasing 31 in September 2023. Through much of 2023, the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach had zero container ships waiting to dock. The Port of Savannah had fewer than five container ships waiting to dock through most of 2023, increasing to 15 in September 2023. All other U.S. ports had 8 container ship waiting to dock as of September 2023.
Footnotes
[1] Fact Sheet: President Biden Announces New Actions to Strengthen America’s Supply Chains. November 27, 2023
[2] U.S. Department of Transportation, Maritime Administration, Office of Policy & Plans using the U.S. Customs & Border Protection, Vessel Monitoring System, special tabulation, available at Latest Supply Chain Indicators (bts.gov) as of September 2023.
[3] U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics analysis; based upon TEU volumes at the ports of Charleston, SC, http://scspa.com/; Houston, https://porthouston.com/; Jacksonville, https://www.jaxport.com/; Long Beach, https://www.polb.com/; Los Angeles, https://www.portoflosangeles.org/; Northwest Seaport Alliance (Seattle / Tacoma), https://www.nwseaportalliance.com/; Oakland, https://www.oaklandseaport.com/; New York/New Jersey, https://www.panynj.gov/; Port of Virginia, http://www.portofvirginia.com/; and Savannah, https://gaports.com/; as of August 2023.
[4] U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), Bureau of Transportation Statistics, based upon USDOT, Maritime Administration, Office of Policy & Plans using the U.S. Customs & Border Protection, Vessel Monitoring System, special tabulation, available at Freight Indicators (dot.gov) as of November 2023.
[5] U.S. Department of Transportation, Maritime Administration, Office of Policy & Plans, and the Marine Exchange of Southern California as of November 2023.