Freight costs rise again? New fees imposed by ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach

The Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach jointly announced on October 25 that starting November 1, the two ports will begin charging surcharges for containers that remain at the dock for too long.

The specific provisions are as follows:

For containers planned to be transported by truck, if the stay time at the terminal exceeds 9 days (including 9 days), a surcharge of US$100/container will be charged per day; for containers planned to be transported by rail, if the stay time at the terminal exceeds 3 days (including 3 days), a surcharge of US$100/container will be charged per day; the additional surcharges will be charged to the shipping companies.

Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, pointed out that the two types of containers mentioned above account for about 40% of the total number of containers currently handled at the port . The fees collected this time will be used for investment in the two ports to improve port efficiency, speed up cargo turnover and solve congestion problems throughout the San Pedro Bay.

Mario Cordero, executive director of the Port of Long Beach, said in a recent statement why the surcharge was being imposed: “Dock space is running low and this policy will free up space for containers that are stranded on ships.”

It is understood that the number of containers passing through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach accounts for about 40% of the number of containers imported into the United States . Since August this year, the number of container ships waiting in line outside the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach has continued to break records. According to Reuters, on October 18, the total number of ships waiting in line to enter the two ports for unloading reached 100, a record high.

In order to solve the problem of cargo backlog, on October 22, the city of Long Beach announced that it would relax the existing container stacking rules. Previously, the area where Long Beach stacks containers could only stack up to 2 containers, which was usually to reduce the visual impact on the surrounding area. However, in the next 90 days, the city of Long Beach will allow four containers to be stacked. This period coincides with the holiday shopping season.

Regarding the newly added surcharge policy, some people think that the wool is still paid by the sheep, and the surcharges collected from the shipping companies will eventually be borne by the cargo owners, which will increase the shipping costs of the cargo owners. Others believe that some containers cannot be picked up for a long time, which should be the allocation problem of the terminal. It is obviously unreasonable for the terminal to charge others for its low operating efficiency.

Not long ago, a survey involving the World Bank showed that the operating efficiency of major container ports in the United States was the lowest in the world. Among the 351 container ports around the world , the Port of Los Angeles ranked 328th and the Port of Long Beach ranked 333rd.

Los Angeles

Long Beach

Freight