U.S. Imports in January Up Almost 8 Percent From December
In the month of January, U.S. imports saw a 7.9 percent increase from the month prior, per data from Descartes. Total volume for January was 2,273,125 TEUS.
The graph below shows what January ’24 U.S. imports look like compared to the previous five years.
The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach received the biggest increases in container volumes; 77,085 and 48,054 TEUs respectively. While Port Houston and Port Charleston received the biggest decreases; -6.042 and -4,331 TEUs respectively.
Port transit delays in January did see increases throughout the top ports – besides the Port of LA, which actually showed a slight decrease, according to data. Not a shock, but the ports on the East Coast had increases in transit time delays.
Suez Canal Revenue Down in January 2024
Shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise but Suez Canal revenue during January 2024 was nearly half of what it was a year ago. Largely due to vessels having to reroute from the Red Sea and instead going around the Cape of Good Hope or other options, instead of going through the Suez Canal.
In January 2023 revenue was $804 million but in January this year… revenue was $428 million, per Marine Insight. The Suez Canal brought in $10.25 billion during 2023.
How the Asia-Europe lane is handling Red Sea Disruption —
Longer transit times are still occurring but, at the moment, the port terminals in Europe are “ handling the operations relatively seamlessly,” according to a Hapag-Lloyd spokesperson in an interview with the JOC.
Additionally, according to a spokesperson for Hutchison Ports, an operator of the UK’s largest container port of Felixstowe, their terminals were not seeing any congestion and no bottlenecks are expected in the coming weeks.
Whenever Suez Canal routings resume there’s a chance that some bottlenecks will occur, but if that happens it’s expected to be short-lived.