Port of Long Beach announced 2004 as their best year ever, with shipments of container cargo jumping 35.8% to the equivalent of 551,339 TEU in Dec 04, compared with Dec 03. Although the winter months are historically the "off season" for trade at the port, December was its third busiest month ever, with the privately operated terminals reporting significant gains in all container categories: inbound, outbound and empties.

Inbound container cargo climbed 28.3% to 269,495 TEU. Outbound cargo increased 11.2% to 93,377 TEU. The number of empties, virtually all headed overseas, soared by 68.3% to 188,467 TEU.

Shipping terminals in Long Beach moved a record-breaking 5,779,852 TEU for all of 2004, an increase of 24.1% over the nearly 4.7mn in 2003 which was the previous best year. The gains stemmed from the economic rebound in the US and Asia, the continuing shift of manufacturing to the Far East and particularly China, and the introduction of direct shipping services from China to Long Beach - many with 8,000TEU ships.

In 2004, inbound container cargo jumped 24% to nearly 3mn TEU. Outbound cargo climbed 11.4% to slightly more than 1mn TEU. Empties increased 32.7% to nearly 1.8mn TEU. In terms of metric revenue tonnes, total container and non-container trade was up 17.6% over last year.

Port infrastructure

Under a US$34mn contract with the port, Irvine-based Ortiz Enterprises Inc has begun a two-year roadway and interchange construction project that will improve traffic flow along Ocean Boulevard on Terminal Island.

When completed in Feb 2007, motorists using Ocean Boulevard will be able to travel non-stop east and west on a new, elevated roadway over the intersections with the Terminal Island Freeway and Pier S Avenue (formerly Henry Ford). Currently, traffic signals at these intersections often cause backups.

COSCO

China Ocean Shipping Co.'s newest 8,000TEU containership, the COSCO Yokohama, made its maiden call on Jan 15 to SSA Marine's Pacific Container Terminal at Pier J. The Yokohama is a sister ship to the COSCO Long Beach, Shenzhen, Seattle and Vancouver, which also call in Long Beach.

COSCO has deployed the new giants in the West Coast's only all 8,000TEU service, its Southeast Asia (SEA) service calling in China in Ningbo, Xiamen, Hong Kong and Yantian, and then across to Long Beach and Vancouver, before returning across the Pacific to Yokohama, Japan, and back to Ningbo.

COSCO has contracted to buy the world's first 10,000TEU containerships and placing orders for four of the super mega-vessels to be built by Hyundai Heavy Industries for delivery in 2008.

The new vessels will be 1,145 ft long and 149.6 ft wide, compared with 984 ft long and 140 ft wide for the 8,000TEU ships that COSCO introduced in Long Beach last summer. Instead of having a seven-stack height of containers on deck, the new ships will have eight. COSCO has not announced where the ships will be deployed. Hyundai Heavy Industries says it is also ready to take orders on a 12,000TEU containership.

While the arrival of an 8,000-TEU containership is still something of a rarity, there are now so many calling in Long Beach that on January 7, the port's shipping terminals were working four of the giants on the same day.

The CMA CGM Hugo called at SSAT's Pier A facility. The OOCL Ningbo was at Long Beach Container Terminal's Pier F facility. SSA's Pacific Container Terminal worked the COSCO Vancouver at Pier J. And the CSCL America called at Total Terminals International's Pier T facility.

The long-term improvement of the Long Beach (710) Freeway is critical because truck traffic is likely to double by the year 2030, even with the full implementation of proposed truck reduction strategies, according to transportation consultant Gill Hicks.

Demand for trade through the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles is expected to triple within 25 years, Hicks said in a presentation to the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners.

A series of strategies -- off-hour truck gates, a shuttle train service, increased use of on-dock rail, and a computerized virtual container yard for swapping empties outside the waterfront - would slow the growth of truck trips on the 710 Freeway. With the strategies, 710 truck traffic would be about the same in the year 2010 as today, but then double by 2030. Looking to take trucks off congested freeways, the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority has approved a test of shuttle train service between the San Pedro Bay ports and the Inland Empire, which is home to many major distribution centers.

ACTA's governing board envisions using Union Pacific tracks, an investment of $5mn to develop an inland container yard in Colton, and operational subsidies of as much as $2mn for the six-to-nine-month trial set to begin this summer.

Container ship calls

The number of vessels calling at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles edged up 1% to 5,727 in 2004, reports the Marine Exchange of Southern California, which monitors vessel traffic.

The number would have been slightly higher but at least 127 ships (including 116 containerships) were diverted to other ports during last year's backup of vessels.

Ship arrivals at the Port of Long Beach, with more space for ships to anchor than the neighboring port in San Pedro, increased 11% to 3,380.