The share of LA-LB among North American west coast ports’ container volume has risen from 58.6 percent in the first quarter of 2012 to 61.4 percent in this year’s first quarter.
The Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex the past three years has increased its share of the container trade on the Pacific Coast of North America, indicating that the big ships carriers are deploying in the trans-Pacific are diverting cargo away from other ports on the coast.
“The bigger the ship, the fewer ports they want to go to,” said Ed DeNike, chief operating officer at SSA Marine, which operates terminals at a number of West Coast ports.