Uncontained chaos at port of Virginia

01/05/2015

There just seems to be no way out for embattled importers in the US. While the congestion on the west coast appears to be thinning, it is getting worse on the east coast, and nowhere is it as bad as at Virginia, which despite reversing five years of continual losses with a profit in 2014, now faces an operational meltdown with a landside backlog that has reached unprecedented levels. “Do you remember the movie Field of Dreams?” asks Virginia port authority chief executive John Reinhart. “’If you build it, they will come?’ We’ve got the reverse. They’re coming and we haven’t built the field.”

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Andy Lane
May 04, 2015 at 6:26 am
The port as a whole enjoyed a 7.6% increase in volumes from 2013 to 2014 and YTD 10% up on 2014Q1 – quite impressive.

In March 2015 they handled a record 229,410 TEU, up slightly against October 2014 with 221,105. If we pro-rata the March 2015 volume into full year (x 12) we would have an annualised through-put of 2.75 million TEU – not quite enough to get it into the world’s top 50.

This volume is handled by 26 QC’s – so on average 105,882 TEU/QC/Year. This compared to an average for the world’s top 12 (volume) ports of 187,000 and highs in Shanghai/Qingdao in excess of 235,000.

Are they quite sure that they are congested?

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