SPOT rates in the Asia-US West Coast lane have been falling since July, but containership traffic to Los Angeles and Long Beach is not following the same downward trajectory.

The two San Pedro Bay ports posted combined imports of 936,362 teu in July, the highest tally since May 2022, when the country was still grappling with the pandemic-era supply chain crisis. The latest data from the Marine Exchange of Southern California (MXSOCAL) implies August numbers should come in similarly strong.

One indicator of inbound volume is the number of containerships at berth. Through Friday, there were an average of 19.6 containerships at berth in Los Angeles and Long Beach per day in August, according to MXSOCAL data, topping the average of 19.4 containerships at berth per day in the full month of July.

On August 26, there were 26 containerships at berth at the two Southern California ports, the highest daily count since September 2022. The all-time high was 35 ships, recorded in January and November 2021.

MXSOCAL also tracks the number of containerships en route to Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Under the queuing system implemented in November 2021, container line operators provide a calculated time of arrival (CTA) as soon as they depart Asian ports. The number of containerships with CTAs beyond the current date is an indicator of inbound flows over the coming weeks.

This bellwether averaged 40.4 ships in March, 44.5 in April, 44.6 in May, 48.8 in June, and 54.9 in July. In August to date, an average of 54.7 containerships per day have had CTAs beyond the current date, with a monthly high of 60 reached on August 15, compared to a monthly high of 64 in July.

Not only do these numbers imply Los Angeles-Long Beach imports will stay high in August in comparison to the exceptional results in July, they also point to continued import strength through early September.

The most recent data on ships with future CTAs provides “a leading indication forecast of strong containership arrivals the next one to two weeks”, said Captain Kip Louttit, executive director of MXSOCAL.

Despite elevated cargo traffic, the situation in San Pedro Bay now is starkly different than during the pandemic. There is no ship queue and there are minimal portside disruptions.

There have been an average of 6.6 ships per day that have not arrived by their CTA in August to date, compared with 6.2 in July. According to Louttit, these vessels are not a “back-up”, rather, they are “choosing to arrive after their CTA to optimise their operations... mostly slow speed steaming by choice to save fuel and generate fewer emissions”.

By contrast, the Los Angeles-Long Beach back-up queue hit a record of 109 ships in January 2022.

“Vessels and cargo arriving, departing, and shifting around the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach continue to move normally, with no labour delays and ample labour,” affirmed Louttit.

There are some effects landside, but nothing like those seen in the pandemic boom. Port of Los Angeles executive director Gene Seroka said earlier this month that rail dwell times in July rose to six days versus a normal range of two to four days, and chassis street dwell times also edged up, but he saw nothing yet that was “cause for alarm”.

Meanwhile, spot freight rate indexes remain very high by historical standards, but have have continued to decline from their July peaks. Spot rates are not only affected by the volume of imports crossing the Pacific, but also by the rapid influx of tonnage owing to newbuilding deliveries.

The Drewry World Container Index assessed spot rates from Shanghai to Los Angeles at $6,401 per feu for the week ending Thursday, down 15% from the recent high reached in the week ending July 11.

The Shanghai Containerised Freight Index put Shanghai-US west coast spot rates at $5,955 per feu for the week ending Friday, down 27% from the week ending July 5.