Smaller U.S. West Coast ports, including the Ports of Oakland, Seattle and Tacoma are experiencing ocean carrier service cutbacks that are adversely impacting U.S. agricultural exporters, according to Paul Snell, president of Huntington Beach, CA-based British-American Shipping.

Two University of Delaware researchers say that U.S. ports, designed to support offshore wind farm construction, are currently too small and will not support the growing number of wind farms and wind turbines that have blades over 300 feet long.

On April 7th, the U.S. Coast Guard coordinated a successful effort to prevent a 1,700 TEU container ship, which lost power, going aground on Northern California’s Point Reyes National Seashore.

Willie Adams, president International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), said he expected a contract agreement between the ILWU and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) will be reached but will take time

Andrew Meredith, president, State Building Trades Council of California is concerned that California environmentalists’ opposition and the State’s lengthy permit approvals process will delay construction of floating offshore wind farms for years.

The air freight equivalent of the ocean container, unit load devices (ULDs) are the backbone of the air cargo supply chain.

Dave Arsenault, president of Oakland, Ca based GSC Logistics and a former president of Hyundai Merchant Marine America, warned that container space has become a more important factor than cost for booking imports and exports on ocean carriers:

The State of California is developing regulatory strategies to support the development of two offshore floating wind farms planned for Northern and Central California. California’s ports will be providing infrastructure and supply chain support.

In the past two years, a lot of attention has been paid to global supply chains. According to Google Trends, searches for “supply chain” have increased more than 64% since the beginning of 2019 – with interest more than doubling at the height of the West Coast port crisis last fall.

Gene Seroka, executive director, Port of Los Angeles says supply chain dislocations impacting ports, warehouse and trucking operations will be reduced with better jobs including better pay and benefits for employees.