Sea-Intelligence said the volume contraction on the North America West Coast (NAWC) has been slowing down, which could indicate a normalisation of the market after several tumultuous months.
"It seems that not all is doom and gloom on the Transpacific trade, as on an annualised basis (compared to 2019), the rate of contraction for both laden imports and total handled volumes has been gradually slowing down for a few months now," the Danish maritime data analysis firm said.
It noted that in May 2023, laden imports recorded a growth of 0%, while total handled volumes contracted by "only" -0.2%.
Laden import volume growth since January 2020.
[Source: Sea-Intelligence]
"The trendline here closely mirrors that of the total volumes, as this forms the major portion of the ports' handling volumes," said Alan Murphy, CEO, Sea-Intelligence.
The report noted that on a year-on-year basis, the strength of the contractions was slightly higher for the laden inbound volumes, whereas on an annualised basis, peak contraction was reached much earlier in December 2022, with the figure relatively stable in January and February 2023 at around -5.5%.
It added that in March 2023, however, the figure improved by a larger degree, easing to -0.7%.
"This gradual improvement over 2023 looks to be an indication towards normalisation of the market," Murphy said.
By May 2023, Sea-Intelligence pointed out that the laden inbound annualised growth rate was 0.0%, which, "while not really growing, is also not contracting."
On a side note, it added that the laden export to empty export ratio has started to decline once again, i.e., towards higher laden export versus empty export, with the latest figure at 0.5, down from 0.9 in March 2023, which was almost at parity.
"This is because laden export volumes have started to grow again, with the May 2023 figure at 5.5% (when annualised over 2019), while empty export volumes are still contracting at around 7%," the report said.