The Port of Redwood City, California which imports sand and aggregates for the Silicon Valley construction industry, reports that tonnages for 2020 are down compared to 2019, but the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions on construction by the State of California could alleviate the downturn.
Kristine Zortman, executive director, Port of Redwood City told AJOT: “By comparison, we are about 15-20% lower than the same period last year, however as the cargo is still coming into the Port we will see if those numbers improve now that all construction is allowed in the State. Some construction was halted during the stay-at-home orders but now that the State has lifted restrictions we expect an uptick.”
In April 2020, the Port reported 5 vessel arrivals generating a monthly tonnage total of 139,095. The cumulative fiscal year tonnage for 2020 is 1,845,153 metric tons.
The prime imports are sand and aggregates from Canada that are used by batch plants and ready mix to produce concrete for construction.
Zortman says major projects like the Facebook expansion and other Silicon Valley expansions have been major consumers of concrete but these projects, “may now be subject to change and we don’t know what those changes are.”
She said “There is a latent impact that we expect to see in the next couple of months.”
However, “the good news is that public infrastructure projects have continued”
She cited:
- The California Department of Transportation freeway “express lane project continues.”
- Local cities’ “contacts and infrastructure projects are continuing.”
- The Silicon Valley Water District continues “its operations.”
- The impact to the Port is that “we are running two budgets for the fiscal year. The first budget is at current levels while the second one projects a 30% reduction.”
