The Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach, in cooperation with the US government’s port envoy, John Porcari, are exploring new ways to move empty containers.
As of January 25, these containers comprised 47% of containers at the ports’ terminals. Now, the new plan aims to provide an unspecified incentive to carriers to more than match the containers they discharge at the ports with containers for export, including empty containers.
The plan use of a formula designed to make sure that laden export containers are not deprioritised to make space for empty containers.
The Port of Los Angeles decided to further extend the container dwell fee program until 29 April, despite the fact that it has not been implemented yet.
The container dwell fee program aims to reduce congestion at the Southern Californian ports of LA and Long Beach, and was approved on 29 October 2021.
The fee would see a $100 per day charge for containers that remained in the terminals for nine days for or more for containers moved by truck, six days for those with rail connections.
However, with an improvement of the situation after the threat of the fee, it has yet to be implemented.
Since the announcement of the fee in October, import cargo lingering nine days or more has declined by 60% at the Port of Los Angeles
