Preliminary July 2024 TEUs

The West Coast Trade Report monitors 24 North American container ports, nineteen in the United States, three in Canada, and two on Mexico’s Pacific Coast. A few other U.S. container ports (notably including the Ports of Wilmington in Delaware and North Carolina, and the Port of Mobile in Alabama) choose not to make their TEU statistics public. Port Miami has lately been unable to supply the statistics we have requested and so we have delisted the Florida gateway, hopefully temporarily. The ports we track, save the Port of New York/New Jersey, usually but not always post their latest TEU tallies in time for our publication date. The TEU tallies here are not estimates but the actual numbers the respective ports are releasing.

What are other trade analysts expecting to see in July? The National Retail Federation’s Global Port Tracker (NRF/GPT) is looking for a 22.1% year-over-year surge in inbound loads to 2.16 million TEUs at the thirteen U.S. container ports it monitors, while Descartes Global anticipates July’s inbound volume at all U.S. ports (2,556,180 TEUs) will be up 16.8% over the previous July and up 16.3% over pre-pandemic July 2019.

Here are the July 2024 TEU numbers the nation’s busiest container ports are reporting.

The Port of Los Angeles had a very busy July, with inbound loads totaling 501,281 TEUs, up 37.6% from a year earlier and 5.2% higher over pre-pandemic July 2019. Outbound loads (114,889) were up 4.1% year-over-year but remained down 28.8% from July 2019. Total Year-to-Date container moves through the San Pedro Bay gateway through July (5,671,091) represented a 4.0% gain over the first seven months of 2019.

Across the street at the Port of Long Beach, inbound loads (435,081) surged by 60.5% from the previous July and by a whopping 38.8% over July 2019. Outbound loads (104,834) were up 16.3% year-over-year but were still 6.1% short of the 111,654 outbound loads the port reported in July 2019. Total container traffic through the port YTD through July (5,174,002) was up 20.0% year-over-year as well as up 20.1% over the same period in 2019.

Collectively, the two San Pedro Bay ports recorded an imposing 47.4% year-over-year bump in inbound loads in July to 936,362 TEUs from 635,294 a year earlier. Outbound loads in July (219,723) saw a noteworthy 9.6% gain from a year earlier. Total container moves through the two ports YTD (10,845,093) were up 11.1% over the first seven months of 2019.

The San Francisco Bay Area’s Port of Oakland handled 80,135 inbound loads in July, a modest 2.6% gain over a year earlier. July’s volume was also down 11.5% from the 90,598 inbound loads the port had discharged in July 2019. Outbound loads at the Northern California gateway (59,362) were up modestly by 2.3% year-over-year but down 22.3% from July 2019. Total container traffic through the port so far this year (1,320,245) was 10.4% below the volume recorded in the first seven months of 2019.

Up in Washington State, the Northwest Seaport Alliance Ports of Tacoma and Seattle discharged 110,304 inbound loads in July, up 24.4% year-over-year but down 10.4% from the volume recorded in July 2019. Outbound loads in July (36,940) were off by 1.8% from a year earlier and fully half the volume the ports handled in July 2019. Total container moves YTD (1.822,489) were down by 18.7% from the same period in 2019.

Altogether, the five major U.S. West Coast container ports reported 1,126,801 inbound laden TEUs in July, a 40.5% boost over the previous July and an 12.3% improvement over July 2019. Outbound loads at these same ports in July (316,025) were up 6.7% from a year earlier but down 25.3% from July 2019.

North of the border, year-over-year comparisons between this July and July 2023 would be misleading given that a strike by longshore workers suppressed traffic through the ports of British Columbia for several days last July. For the record, though, the Port of Vancouver handled 169,164 inbound loads in July, up 3.8% over July 2019. Outbound loads (60,745) were down by 33.6% from July 2019. Total container traffic through Canada’s largest port through the first seven months of 2024 (2.076,769) was up 4.0% from five years earlier.

At North America’s northern most Pacific Coast port, the Port of Prince Rupert, the 33,744 inbound loads in July represented a 22.1% increase over-a-year earlier but remained well shy of the 66,277 inbound loads the port had handled in July 2019. Outbound loads (10,965) jumped 42.6% over July 2023 but well below the 15,397 TEUs that sailed from the port five years earlier. Total container traffic YTD amounted to 468,944 TEUs, up 8.8% from the preceding July but far below the 659,398 TEUs the port had handled in the first half of 2019.

Back East, the Port of Virginia posted a modest 3.8% year-over-year increase in inbound loads to 146,926 TEUs, its highest volume in July since 2022. The gain in inbound loads was 17.3% over July 2019. Outbound loads (92,564) at the Mid-Atlantic gateway were the fewest of any month this year but the most of any previous July. Still, this July’s outbound volume was up 14.5% from July 2019. Total YTD container traffic through the port (2,100,151) was 22.1% higher than in the same period five years ago.

Meanwhile, the Port of Charleston continues to see surprisingly meager growth in its overall container numbers. To be sure, outbound loads in July (114,434) were up 6.2% year-over-year, but outbound loads (51,729) were down 3.9% from a year ago. Total container traffic YTD (1,464,383) was up just 2.9% from the same period a year earlier and was only 3.3% more than the 1,417,959 total TEUs the South Carolina port handled back in the first seven months of 2019.

July saw the Port of Savannah discharge 245,289 inbound loads, up 6.5% year-over-year and 24.3% higher than the volume handled at this point in 2019. Outbound loads (113,878) were up 7.8% from the preceding July but were down 3.3% from July 2019. So far this year, the Georgia port has handled a total of 3,190,252 loads and empties, 20.9% more than through the first seven months of 2019.

Along the Gulf Coast, Port Houston saw the arrival of 157,565 laden TEUs in July, down 5.2% from a year earlier but up 41.9% from July 2019. Outbound loads in July (112,607) were off by 4.3% year-over-year but up 7.8% from July 2019. The Texas port handled 2,423,474 loads and empties in this calendar year through July, a 10.0% bump over last year and a 40.8% gain over the same period in 2019.

July tallies from the Port of New York/New Jersey, the Port of Savannah, and Port Miami were unavailable by our publication deadline.