Name: Port of Long Beach  

        Address: 925 Harbor Plaza, P.O. Box 570                   

City: Long Beach, Calif. 90802 

President:  Doris Topsy-Elvord

Product: Port Services

Year Founded: 1911    

      The Port of Long Beach is one of the world’s busiest seaports, a leading gateway for trade between the United States and Asia and a major cog in the production sharing between Asia and Mexico.

      Long Beach is the United State’s second busiest port, the world’s 12th busiest container cargo port and, if combined with the adjacent Port of Los Angeles, the ports would be the world’s fifth-busiest port complex, after Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai and Shenzhen (China).

      East Asian trade accounts for more than 90 percent of the shipments through the port. Top trading partners are China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Germany, Philippines.

      The value of cargo through the port was $92 billion in 2004, including 5.7 billion TEUs (twenty-foot-long cargo container units) that moved through the port. Container throughput has nearly tripled since 1990.

      Leading exports by tonnage are petroleum coke, petroleum, wastepaper, plastics, sulfur, hay, soda ash, cotton, iron and steel, organic chemicals, fruit and nuts, machinery and hides. The leading exports by value are machinery, plastics, electric machinery, vehicles, organic chemicals, cotton, chemical products, hides, petroleum products, fruit and nuts.

      Leading imports by tonnage are petroleum, furniture, machinery, electric machinery, cement, vehicles, steel products, plastics, toys and chemicals. The leading imports by value are machinery, electric machinery, vehicles, toys, furniture, petroleum products, clothing, shoes, plastics, and iron/steel products.

      To handle projected cargo growth, the port is planning a $1.9 billion program to redevelop seven of eight existing container terminals, and to build at least two new terminals. The following projects are planned for the next decade:

      •Complete a 375-acre Pier T container terminal on Terminal Island.

      •Construct a 160-acre Pier S terminal on a former Terminal Island oil field.

      •Build a deepwater, liquid bulk terminal on Pier T to serve larger tankers.

      •Replace five-lane Gerald Desmond Bridge with a taller bridge with at least six lanes.

      During the next 10 to 15 years, the Port of Long Beach plans to create at least four container terminals of more than 300 acres each and to build at least one other large terminal. The new terminals will have dockside rail facilities, which allow cargo to be transferred directly between ships and trains. Such transfers speed deliveries between Long Beach and markets nationwide.

      The port is served by the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroads, which reach markets throughout North America. Half of the cargo passing through the port is moving by train to or from markets east of the Rocky Mountains and the Gulf and East coasts.

      The Port of Long Beach has invested $200 million in the $2.4 billion Alameda Corridor, a 20-mile railway connecting the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles and Southern California’s major railheads. The centerpiece of the Alameda Corridor is a 10-mile-long, 33-foot-deep, 50-foot-wide trench for freight trains that is crisscrossed with overpasses. The corridor is able to accommodate up to 100 trains a day traveling at speeds up to 40 miles per hour.

Economic impact

      Trade through the port generates 1.4 million trade-related jobs throughout the nation; 320,000 jobs or one in 22 regional jobs in a five-county region consisting of Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside and Ventura counties; and 30,000 Long Beach jobs or one in eight local jobs.

      These jobs are on the docks, in the shipping industry, in land and rail transportation, importing and exporting, manufacturing, distribution and sales, in addition to construction of terminals and port improvements.

      The port is managed as a department of the city of Long Beach. Internationally, the Harbor Department is known as the Port of Long Beach. This title is consistent with other U.S. and world ports such as the Port of Los Angeles, the Port of Oakland, and the Port of New York/New Jersey.

      Cargo traffic is growing because of consumer demand for goods made in Asia keeps growing. Asia is the world’s leading manufacturing center for products such as clothing, toys, shoes, home furnishings and electronics. The United States is the world’s leading consuming nation.

      The Harbor District that encompasses the port will not be expanded beyond its current boundaries. Even growth within the Harbor District is constrained by the practical restraints of today’s environmental protection regulations. These limits mean that the physical expansion of port land within the Harbor District is likely to end within the next two decades.

      The port is encouraging more efficient use of the existing freeway network by sponsoring truck appointment systems to spread traffic flow throughout the day. The port is also urging importers and exporters to operate at night and during weekends when freeways are less congested.

      The port is offering $1 million in incentives for the terminals to install exhaust treatment devices, and to use cleaner-burning diesel fuels. The port itself is switching to low- and zero-emission vehicles.

      The Port of Long Beach is adjacent to the Port of Los Angeles. The two ports are operated separately — one by the city of Long Beach and the other by the city of Los Angeles. The two ports compete for business, but have cooperated on joint rail and other infrastructure projects.

      The port has also begun a new $2.2 million-a-year clean air initiative, the Green Flag Incentive Program. The program offers financial incentives and environmental awards for fleet operators who help improve air quality by voluntarily reducing vessel speeds when they enter or depart from the port.

      About 65 percent of all vessels now comply with the port’s voluntary speed reduction program, which has been in place since 2001. Port officials estimate that if all vessels comply with the program, the amount of smog-forming nitrogen oxides (NOx) produced by container ships would be reduced by nearly 550 tons a year.
      Under the Green Flag program, vessels that observe a 12-knot speed limit within 20 miles of the port during an entire year of voyages to and from Long Beach will be awarded a Green Flag to recognize their contributions to improved air quality. Ocean carriers, who operate the individual ships, will qualify for a 15 percent discounted Green Flag dockage rate during the following 12 months if 90 percent of their vessels comply with the 12-knot speed limit for a year.