Transpacific Shipping Container Availability Report for Jan. 23-29
The Agricultural Marketing Service released the Ocean Shipping Container Availability Report (OSCAR) for the week of Jan. 23-29. 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 Jan. 26-29 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. The container availability estimates have increased over the previous week for all these ports except New York. The ports of New Orleans, Seattle, and Oakland also experienced significant increases over the previous week.
Inland Locations: Among the reported inland locations, Chicago, Dallas, Memphis, and Columbus are expected to have the most containers available over the next three weeks. Except for Dallas and Columbus, each of these locations saw increases over the previous week’s estimates. In fact, over the past several weeks, Dallas and Minneapolis have experienced consistent container availability increases.
Equipment: Overall, availability for all container types combined was up more than 3,300 containers this week over the previous week.
- More than half of the locations saw an increase in overall availability, but availability of refrigerated containers at most locations fell from the previous week.
- The largest availability jump this week was in New Orleans, mostly for 20ft and 40ft dry containers.
- Among the five equipment types reported, the largest increase this week was for 40ft dry containers, particularly in Memphis, New Orleans, Houston, Minneapolis, and Charleston.
- Over the next three weeks, Cincinnati shows a sizeable increase in availability of 40ft high-cube containers.
1The 18 intermodal locations included in the report are Long Beach/Los Angeles, Oakland, Seattle, Tacoma, Denver, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbus, Memphis, New Orleans, New York, Norfolk, Charleston, and Savannah.
2These carriers are COSCO, Evergreen, Hanjin Shipping, Hapag Lloyd, Yang Ming Transport Corporation, OOCL, K Line, and Hyundai Merchant Marine.