Port of Oakland’s Driscoll: Imports and exports rising In March

While “Tremendous Cooperation” Addresses Emergency Conditions

Port of Oakland Maritime Director John Drsicoll says that exports and imports with Asia are on the rise - last week, 9 vessels arrived at the Port “within two days,” indicating that “trade with China is ramping back up.”

In an interview with AJOT, Driscoll said “I can’t prove this yet until we see the figures for the whole of the month of March, but right now we are seeing a big upturn in vessel arrivals from Asia and this is primarily because China is back on line.”

He said that U.S. agricultural exporters, including those shipping to Asia, are also experiencing an improvement and are benefitting from the large number of empty containers that had been stored at the Port during the shutdown in China.

Trade Has Improved

Driscoll said there has been a jump in vessel arrivals that involved activating longshore labor to work the seldom-used third shift between 3AM and 6AM to handle the upsurge in vessel arrivals.

The number of blank sailings by ocean carriers is no longer on the rise and some have of the scheduled blank sailings have been rescinded. Driscoll expects the number of sailings will continue to rise.

Last week, the Port saw 9 vessel arrivals in two days at the Port’s Oakland International Container Terminals (OICT) operated by Stevedoring Services of America (SSA).

The additional volumes have been handled because: “we have seen tremendous cooperation between all of our maritime partners at the Port, including stevedores, longshore labor, the shipping lines, truckers and Customs.”

For exporters’ the good news is that the backlog in processing refrigerated cargoes in China has also lessened: “now that the truckers are back to work in China, they are moving reefer cargoes and so we expect things to get back to normal soon.”

SeaIntelligence Warning

However, the positive effect could be temporary.

Lars Jensen, container shipping analyst with Copenhagen-based SeaIntelligence Consulting, told AJOT that there is a possibility of a 10% decline in global container shipments. He said the decline, which would equate to 17m teus (twenty- foot unit containers) by the world’s container shipping fleet, is a possibility that has “unfortunately moved closer to reality.”

Keeping Port of Oakland Open During Coronavirus Emergency

Driscoll said that the action by the Port of Houston to shut down Port operations for a day when a worker tested positive for the Coronavirus was “reasonable” but the incident did send a message to Ports that they needed to be prepared in case an employee tests positive for the Coronavirus

As of March 23rd, Stevedoring Services of America (SSA) resolved a dispute with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) over the cleaning of equipment at the Port of Oakland SSA terminal.

A port of Oakland spokesman, Mike Zampa told AJOT: “SSA has agreed to use the same cleaning protocols as other terminals. We believe this will resolve the issue.”

“Terminals at the Port of Oakland have protocols in place to deal with a situation” when an employee tests positive with the virus, Driscoll said. “The objective of the Port of Oakland is to stay open and we believe the terminals are prepared, but we also want to keep our employees safe,” Driscoll said.

The Port’s recent experience working to unload cruise ship passengers from the Grand Princess, some of whom had tested positive for the Coronavirus, involved cooperation with Federal, State and Local agencies. These included U.S. Health and Human Services, State of California, City of Oakland and others so that: “we’ve got good channels open to key government response organizations, and we came through the Grand Princess situation safely and professionally while keeping the supply chain moving.”

Driscoll said that 95% of Port staff were working from home and handling business by phone and by internet. This has been a challenging time for everyone, he noted, but “I am confident our staff and our partners will rise to the challenge.”