U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg joined Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka, discussing the latest developments in the supply chain.
The discussion included how ports will benefit from the new Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which was recently passed by Congress and signed on Monday by President Biden.
During the briefing, Mr. Seroka discussed a plan to move tens of thousands of empties that are sitting on docks and need to be shipped back to Asia. The plan includes asking liners to bring in “sweeper” ships to load empties dwelling at terminals and nearby facilities.
Those dwell times continue to be high and we’re encouraging all of our liner shipping companies to bring these empties through, even ones that have been decked or grounded at near-dock facilities that the port has opened up. If we can pull this off by expediting the imports outgate on rail and truck, bring those empties in at nighttime and work them against the vessel, we can do a lot better
He also added that until now six additional sweeper ships have picked up a little more than 17,500 TEU of empties and there are another two on their way that can pick up probably 2,500 more empty container units. Currently, there are about 65,000 empty container units sitting on the docks.
We’ve also given an additional task for liner shipping companies and marine terminal operators to double down on loading back empties against vessels to get them back to Asia, not at the expense of the American exporter. That’s why we’ve asked for more ships to come in to pick up and overload on those empties going back to Asia
Mr. Seroka concluded.
In a recent development, the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach decided to delay the implementation of their container dwell fee directed at ocean carriers until November 22.
Namely, a $100 penalty will be imposed for any container that lingers, waiting for pick-up at US’s twin top maritime gateway ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
The measure started on November 1, with rail cargo not allowed to sit at the ports for no more than three days, and truck cargo for no more than nine days before the fined begin.
After the end of the deadlines, a $100 fine per container will be assessed, with an additional $100 every day that each container remains at the port.
