Californian ports race to stay competitive

With competition heating up throughout the industry, the Port of Los Angeles (POLA) has introduced a new Ocean Common Carrier Incentive Programme to reward shipping lines that bring new container business to the port in 2014.

A spokesperson for the Port of Los Angeles told Port Strategy: “A primary goal of this programme is to remain flexible and competitive. As carriers make important routing decisions, we wanted to give a strong financial incentive to do business at the Port of Los Angeles.”

While the Port of Long Beach (POLB) hasn’t introduced anything yet, PS understands it’s looking at steps to remain competitive.

The port build already has a Green Ship Award Programme in place, introduced in 2012 to encourage and reward larger, cleaner ships that call at the port.

A second incentive programme was also introduced in 2012 to attract more containers to move via rail through the port.

As part of POLA’s new programme, an ocean carrier will earn US$5 per teu for each extra container it ships through the port next year. The rate will jump to US$15 per teu for all teus if a carrier’s container volume grows by 100,000 or more units for the same 12-month period.

The baseline for measuring the increased volume will be the total number of containers each carrier moved through the port in 2013.

Carriers will receive their incentive in a lump-sum payment in early 2015. The programme will be monitored by port staff on a monthly basis to evaluate its effectiveness.