What a difference a year makes. At this time in 2022, over 100 container ships were stuck waiting off the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, with around 150 off all North American ports combined. Now, there are almost no ships waiting in Pacific waters and increasingly few off the East and Gulf coasts.
Ship-position data showed just 30 container vessels off North American ports Friday morning. All remaining queues are down to single digits per port.
Factory closures for Asia’s Lunar New Year holiday are expected to depress U.S imports in the first quarter, giving ports a chance to clear out the last of the queues. According to Jeremy Nixon, CEO of shipping line ONE, holiday factory closures in China should begin Saturday and run through the first week of February, with production taking additional weeks after that to ramp back up.
Progress for remaining queues
There were 25 container ships waiting off East and Gulf coast ports Friday morning, roughly half the number in late November and around a quarter of the total in late July.
The Port of Savannah in Georgia had almost 50 ships waiting in mid-2022; there were still close to 30 in late November. As of Friday morning, there were eight.
