19 October (Lloyd's List) - ACTIVITY at the port of Long Beach reached record levels last month, as a surge of cargo propelled it to its strongest ever September.

The west coast port handled 829,429 teu last month, a 11.8% increase from the year-earlier period, which itself was less than 1% below the previous September record reached in 2020. Last month’s results also spell the port’s first year on year increase in 14 months.

The port’s executive director Mario Cordero attributed the robust performance to strong consumer demand, and to the west coast labour agreement.

The deal, which was reached in June and ratified in August, was viewed as critical to restoring shippers’ confidence in the west coast ports following months of uncertainty. Experts anticipated that the deal’s ratification would see some cargo that migrated eastwards in the last two years make its way back, although not to a dramatic extent.

“Consumer confidence is on the rise and shippers can rely on the port of choice now that we have a ratified contract in place with our waterfront workforce,” Cordero said in a statement.

“We look forward to a moderate rebound in cargo volume through the end of the year.”

In June, a carrier’s diversion of cargo from the port of Long Beach to the adjacent port of Los Angeles led to soft figures in the former and surprisingly strong figures for the latter.

With the port of Long Beach reaching cargo volumes are reminiscent of the pandemic-era’s shipping boon, attention now turns to the port of Los Angeles which is set to release its September figures next week. These would reveal whether Long Beach’s gain came at the expense of Los Angeles and portray more complete picture for the state of trade at the San Pedro Bay.

September imports at the port of Long Beach came in at 408,926 teu, a 19.3% year on year increase, while empties increased 11.5% to 319,255 teu.

The National Retail Federation, which said imports have slowed in its latest report, projected US major ports handled about 1.94m teu in September. According to those projections, Long Beach accounted for a massive 21% of imports last month.