NEW data from nine leading US ports compiled by Lloyd’s List show that combined import throughput increased to 1.833m teu in July 2020, up from 1.534m teu in June and almost on a par with the 1.867m teu recorded in July 2019.

However, July exports were down by about 9% compared with the same month last year at 822,963 teu.

The port of Long Beach has emerged as the national leader in terms of percentage increases, showing a 25.3% increase of loaded imports in July over June, going to 376,807 teu from 300,714 teu.

Long Beach stood completely alone among the nine ports with a positive percentage in terms of a year-on-year increase in loaded imports, rising by 20.3% to 376,807 teu in July 2020 from 313,350 teu in July 2019. No other port had a positive percentage of year-on-year loaded imports.

Similarly, there are many signs that normality is returning to China in economic terms with export demand bouncing back rapidly.

In the second quarter, the country also imported record volumes — mostly commodities to be used for domestic infrastructure. Chinese domestic steel demand, for example, has been boosted by mega infrastructure projects, such as airports and rail links.

China had 73% of the total world volumes of imported iron ore in 2019 and has imported 660 million tonnes in the first seven months of 2020, up 12% compared to the same period a year earlier — at a time when others have halted imports.

When it comes to coal, Chinese imports from January to July totalled 200m tonnes, up 7% year on year. For soyabeans, imports in the first seven months of 2020 rose 18% year on year to 55m tonnes.

Monthly container volumes at Shanghai port were also on par with the all-time high in July 2020. The port handled 3.9m teu in July, up 1.2% year on year and 8.3% m-o-m data from the Chinese ministry of transport showed.

Meanwhile, the latest Shanghai and Yangshan port call numbers complied by Lloyd’s List Intelligence show numbers have been relatively steady around the 400 mark for the past five weeks, although the figure dipped to 385 in the most recent seven days.

The global crude tanker fleet is forecast to grow by an additional 98m dwt to 2024, or 23%, according to the latest Lloyd’s List Intelligence Shipbuilding Outlook.

Between now and 2024, an estimated 129m dwt spread across 676 crude tankers is forecast to be delivered, which is 21%, or 23m dwt, more than in the previous five years

The current orderbook stands at 92m dwt, which signals that many of the deliveries are ships already in the orderbook.

During the 2015-2019 period, fleet growth was 22%, or 76m dwt, which corresponds to 4.1% growth on average each year.

The data shows the crude tanker fleet currently at 2,225 crude oil carriers, or 429m dwt, of which 254m dwt is on 823 very large crude carriers.

The recent release of Lloyd’s List One Hundred Ports 2020 and the start of a new decade offers an opportunity to reflect on the fortunes of the ports leading the rankings over the past 10 years.

The graphic below shows the changing teu totals of today’s 10 largest box facilities from 2009 through to our latest count, incorporating volumes for 2019.

Behind the numbers is the story of how the container port sector has evolved, charting the rise of China’s colossal container hubs and how the country has sustained and elevated its status as the heartbeat of global trade and the world’s manufacturing base.

Shanghai epitomises China’s rise, leapfrogging Singapore to take the crown of the world’s largest container port in 2010. Since 2009, liftings across its docks have risen by more than 73% from 25m teu to 43.3m teu.

While Singapore has fallen from top spot, it too has seen volumes accelerate over the decade alongside fellow transhipment port Busan, whose ‘hub and spoke’ offering became increasingly attractive and indeed essential to carriers in the age of the ultra-large containership.

The success of Singapore and Busan, however, has come at the expense of Hong Kong — the anomaly among the top 10 ports, as the only one to report a drop in traffic across the decade.

Rewind to 2005 and Hong Kong stood tall as the world’s largest port in terms of teu throughput, acting as the container gateway to the Chinese economy.

Mauritians are calling for more protections for waters around the island from shipping following the bulker Wakashio's grounding, which spilled an estimated 1,000 tonnes of fuel oil into the ocean, causing an ecological disaster and a state of environmental emergency to be declared.

They want the minimum distance for vessels not calling at Mauritian ports and plying the Asia-Atlantic route to be extended further out from the current 12 nautical miles stipulated in the United Nations Convention for the Law of the Sea, which demarcates territorial waters.

Lloyd’s List Intelligence data show the closest that capesize bulk carriers sailing to and from Brazil and China will normally sail past the country, and the route taken by the vessel Wakashio.