Transpacific Shipping Container Availability Report for April 17-23
The Agricultural Marketing Service released the Ocean Shipping Container Availability Report (OSCAR) for the week of April 17-23. The weekly report contains data on container availability for westbound transpacific traffic at 18 intermodal locations in the U.S.1 from the eight member carriers of the Westbound Transpacific Stabilization Agreement (WTSA).2 Although the report is compiled by AMS, it covers container availability for all merchandise, not just agricultural products.
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Weekly Estimates for Next Three Weeks on Five Types of Containers; Includes Maps, Tables
Estimates are available for the current week, as well as the subsequent two weeks, for each of the following five types of shipping containers: 20ft dry, 40ft dry, 40ft high-cube (HC), 20ft reefer, and 40ft reefer. The report has tables for each intermodal location showing availability of each type of shipping container from each carrier (carriers are anonymous).
Highlights of the report for the week of April 17-23 include:
Ports: The ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach, New York, Norfolk, and Charleston are expected to have the most available containers among the reported port locations over the next three weeks. Container availability estimates at each of these locations fell from the previous week, but over the next three weeks overall availability in Los Angeles/Long Beach, New York, and Charleston is expected to increase; decreases are expected in Norfolk.
Inland Locations: Among the reported inland locations, Dallas, Chicago, Memphis, and Columbus are expected to have the most containers available over the next three weeks. Dallas, Memphis, and Columbus experienced increases from the previous week; availability in Chicago fell.
Equipment: Overall, availability of all container types combined was down more than 3600 units from the previous week and more than 14,300 units over the past five weeks.
- Only six of the reported locations saw increases this week and most were inland locations—Columbus, Dallas, Memphis, New Orleans, and Norfolk.
- Container availability decreased this week for each container type except for a small increase in 20ft containers (see table below). Availability of 40ft high-cube containers experienced the largest decrease this week, falling 21 percent. Availability of 40ft dry containers has declined for five consecutive weeks.
- Availability of 20ft refrigerated containers fell this week for the first time in six weeks. Significant decreases were reported in in Los Angeles/Long Beach and New York.
1The 18 intermodal locations included in the report are Charleston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbus, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Kansas City, Long Beach/Los Angeles, Memphis, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York, Norfolk, Oakland, Savannah, Seattle and Tacoma.
2These carriers are COSCO, Evergreen, Hanjin Shipping, Hapag Lloyd, Hyundai Merchant Marine, K Line, OOCL, and Yang Ming Transportation Corp.