Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Seattle Shipping Boom: +48% Gain YTD from 2009

The chart above shows monthly shipping volume (TEUs = twenty-foot equivalent units, data here) at the Port of Seattle (America's 10th largest port, and third largest port on the West Coast).  Shipping volume for July (219,349TEUs) was 61.7% above last year's shipping in July, and this follows year-to-year increases of 49% in June, 57.38% in May, 57.2% in April, 39.4% in March, 48.2% in February and 21.7% in January. Year-to-date, shipping volume through July at the Seattle port is 47.9% above last year.  At this pace, annual Seattle shipping in 2010 will likely exceed both last year's shipping volume of 1.58 million TEUs and the 1.70 million TEUs in 2008, and possibly even the 1.973 TEUs in 2007.

4 Comments:

At 8/18/2010 7:04 PM, Blogger mjwasserman said...

disclaimer... i am bearish.

to what extent do we know that these containers are not simply empties going back to china where storing them is cheaper?

e.g., how do we tell this is actual trade going on?

is it also possible that sea freight out of this port is taking volume away from other ports or, perhaps, air cargo?

im a bit tired of seeing stats from ports of seattle, l.a. and long beach without any acknowledgement about the current macro environment being in direct conflict with the stats.... alas....

 
At 8/18/2010 9:20 PM, Blogger juandos said...

"to what extent do we know that these containers are not simply empties going back to china where storing them is cheaper?"...

Hmmm, interesting question...

Yet on the face of it, it would seem far to expensive to ship empty containers to China (or some othere Pacific rim country) merely for storage...

 
At 8/19/2010 8:55 AM, Blogger Hydra said...

Even if they ae empties going back to be refilled with goods, it implies an improved economy down the road.

And, as MJP has pointed out, not all of those containers are coming back filled with cheap flip-flops. Some of them are coming with materials for US manufacturors to use.

 
At 8/20/2010 9:53 AM, Blogger bobble said...

it sure would be nice to see the chart go back to at least 2006

 

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