Baclog of container ship at LA almost over

Containership backlog outside LA ports almost over

The number of containerships headed for the California ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach has dropped to the lowest level since the bottleneck started to build two years ago. Eight vessels were in the official queue as of August 29, according to data from the Marine Exchange of Southern California & Vessel Traffic Service Los Angeles and Long Beach. That’s an all-time low, down from a record of 109 set in January and about 40 lined up a year ago.

The Los Angeles-Long Beach bottleneck became one of the most enduring images of the supply-and-demand imbalances triggered by Covid lockdowns. The backlog forced ships to wait two weeks or more, contributing to record-high ocean freight rates that helped ignite inflation now afflicting economies from the US to Europe. Source: ttnews.com