May Busiest Month in Nearly Four Years at Port of Oakland

Volume up for third straight month; import cargo grows 4.5 percent

Oakland, CA - June 15, 2015: May was the busiest month in nearly four years at the Port of Oakland. The Port said today it handled 213,260 cargo containers last month. That was the most since it reported volume of 216,276 containers in August 2011.

The total volume of import, export and empty containers was up 3.8 percent in May from a year ago. It was the third straight month of year-over-year volume increases reported in Oakland.

“We’re seeing steady improvement – especially in import cargo,” said the Port’s Maritime Director, John Driscoll. “Our job now is to accelerate the momentum.”

Loaded import container volume increased 4.5 percent in May from the same period a year ago, the Port said. Shipments of empty containers back to origins in Asia were up 20 percent. The empty repositioning indicates that Ports are still rebalancing containers dislocated by wintertime trade slowdowns.

Export volume declined 5.6 percent in May, the Port said. The decrease was attributed to a strong dollar which makes U.S. exports more expensive. Nevertheless, export volume of 79,890 containers was the most in Oakland since last October.

Monthly cargo statistics are available at the Port of Oakland Web site: www.portofoakland.com.