General

According to the Long Beach Business Daily, in the face of the large backlog of containers in the San Pedro Bay port, the operators of the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach announced a new surcharge to ship companies that have kept containers in the port for a long time. Charge a new daily fee.

Due to the significant increase in port stay time, it has become difficult for terminals to clean up cargo and waiting ships to call at the port. This new measure is to speed up the flow of goods in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

The latest measures of the two ports

From November 1st, carriers who detain containers at the port for a long time will be charged a surcharge. Each container will be charged $100, and each container will increase by $100 per day (that is, an additional $100/container will be charged for one day longer).

Applicable circumstances for charging surcharges:

Containers transported by trucks stay in the port for 9 days or more;

Containers transported by rail will stay in the port for 3 days or more.

Gene Seroka, Executive Director of the Port of Los Angeles, said: "We must speed up the shipment of cargo from the port to reduce the number of vessels waiting to be berthed outside the port. Currently, about 40% of the containers on our terminals fall into these two categories. If we can clean up these idles. For cargo, our terminal will have more space to receive empty containers, handle export cargo, and improve the liquidity of cargo for the majority of cargo owners who use our port."

According to the announcement, the levied fees will be reinvested by the two ports in projects to improve port efficiency, speed up freight and solve congestion.

These measures were introduced as the number of ships in the port continued to increase. According to data from the Southern California Ocean Exchange, two more records were set over the weekend. Just a few days ago, there were 100 ships waiting, but at the weekend, the total number of ships waiting outside the port reached 110, including 80 container ships. About half of the ships stayed at anchorages, while the rest waited further offshore.

In addition, in September of this year, the average stay time of containers shipped by truck at the port was 5.94 days, reaching the highest level of the data tracked by the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association since May 2016. Compared with August, the detention time of railway containers in September improved significantly, from 8.2 days to 5.5 days.

According to port statistics, before the surge in import demand caused by the epidemic in mid-2020, the average storage time of locally shipped containers at the terminal was less than 4 days, and the retention time of containers shipped by train was less than two days.

Mario Cordero, Executive Director of the Port of Long Beach, said: “As the backlog of coastal ships continues to increase, we must take immediate action to quickly remove containers from our marine terminals. Currently, there is not enough space in the terminals and we need to pay for the containers loaded on those backlogs. Make room."

Last Friday, California Governor Gavin Newsom ordered state agencies to find additional container storage space, while Long Beach temporarily relaxed zoning rules to help solve the serious shortage of container storage space.

In the next three months, the City of Long Beach will temporarily relax zoning rules to allow taller containers to be stacked on private properties. Previously, containers could be stacked in two layers, and for the next three months, up to five layers were allowed to be stacked, depending on safety approvals.

According to reports, the surcharge policy was formulated in coordination with the Biden Administration’s Supply Chain Interruption Working Group, the U.S. Department of Transportation and numerous supply chain stakeholders.