Los Angeles, Long Beach port leaders say…
Los Angeles, Long Beach port leaders say clearing cargo backlog may take 3 months
Port of Long Beach chief Jon Slangerup and Port of Los Angeles chief Gene Seroka opened Day 2 of the annual Trans Pacific Maritime Conference at the Long Beach Convention Center by discussing congestion at their ports. The coastline is still littered with ships waiting to be unloaded. Long Beach, March 3, 2015. (Brittany Murray / Staff Photographer)
From left, Gene Seroka, Executive Director, Port of Los Angeles, and Port of Long Beach Executive Director Jon W. Slangerup.
By Karen Robes Meeks | karen.robes@langnews.com |
PUBLISHED: March 3, 2015 at 7:49 p.m. | UPDATED: September 1, 2017 at 2:27 a.m.
Top Los Angeles and Long Beach port officials said Tuesday that it will take three months for the nation's two busiest seaports to clear the thousands of cargo containers left stranded on nearly two dozen ships, a backlog brought on by epic congestion and made worse by contentious labor talks between dockworkers and their employers.
The twin ports will need about three months "to get back to a sense of normalcy," with the first month focused on getting caught up on the backlog, said Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka, who participated in a panel with Long Beach Port Chief Executive Jon Slangerup at the Journal of Commerce's 15th annual Trans-Pacific Maritime Conference at the Long Beach Convention Center.
Seroka added that Tuesday was the first time in awhile that the number of vessels anchored at the breakwater dipped under 30 ships.
The Marine Exchange of Southern California reported 29 backed-up vessels at anchor off the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, including 20 container ships Tuesday.
Slangerup echoed Seroka's sentiment, saying that he was confident that Long Beach can clear the inventory within three months.
For the past several months, congestion has plagued the twin ports, caused by the arrival of bigger ships, the uneven distribution of chassis — or trailers needed to move the containers — and a shortage of rail cars.
The bottlenecks worsened after the Pacific Maritime Association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union began negotiating for a new contract to cover 20,000 West Coast dockworkers. Talks stretched out for nine months and became so contentious, politicians and industries called for federal intervention.
The end result: stranded ships, congested terminal yards and weekslong shipment delays, prompting customers to divert goods to other ports or ship them by air. Customers spoke of produce rotting on the docks and businesses having to furlough or lay off employees because of the congestion.
As a consequence, the twin ports, which handle about 40 percent of U.S. imports, have seen their cargo numbers plummet by more than 18 percent in January.
While both local port executives expressed relief in seeing a tentative agreement finally reached Feb. 20 between dockworkers and their employers, Seroka and Slangerup said they are working hard to bring back lost business to Los Angeles and Long Beach by reassuring customers, spending tens of millions of dollars in infrastructure projects, freeing up port space to accommodate the overflow of cargo containers and finding solutions to the lack of available chassis.
"We certainly are doing everything we can … to provide relief valves wherever we can," Slangerup said.
Contact Karen Robes Meeks at 562-714-2088.
Port of Long Beach
Port of Los Angeles
Karen Robes Meeks