b'JUNE 21 - JULY 25, 2021GLOBAL 100 CONTAINER PORTS 27(REBOUNDcontinued fromtotalof34containerportsinthe5Notes on the AJOTs page 25) million club. The U.S. had three (the theestimated801millionahugeports of NY/NJ and Los Angeles andAnnual Top 100 Containerports A-Zswing of 45 million TEUs (similar toLongBeach)whileSpainhadtwo adding another Port of Shanghai to the(Algeciras and Valencia) as did IndiaBy George Lauriat, AJOT world port total). Put another way, the(Jawaharlal Nehru and Mundra).total for 2020 would have been simi- All in all, Chinese ports annuallyThis years 2021 version of AJOTsEven with the COVID-19 impacts, lar to the 757 million TEU throughputhandle 30%-34% of the global totalTop 100 Containerports A-Z is verythe range is similar to last years edi-in 2017. Instead, container throughputwith no signs of slowing down. Givenmuchabyproductoftheunevention. The 2020 tally runs in size from has bounced back in unexpected vol- these numbers, it isnt surprising thatimpacttheCOVID-19pandemicthemega-portofShanghai(China) umesandestimatesfor2021rangewith so much TEU port capacity onhadontheworldscontainerports.at43.51millionTEUstoChennai from a conservative 827 million TEUsone side of the supply chain pushingIn some cases, the pandemics influ- (India) at 1.4 million TEUs. All things toamorerobustforecastof849.57TEUs outbound, the inward flow intoencedramatically cut TEUthrough- being equal, the number of ports could millionTEUs.Whileneitherprojec- the smaller side i.e the U.S. Westput while in others there was little oreasily have been 110-to-120 as many tionfor2021wouldmatchanythingCoast ports - is subject to backup. no change in throughput. And in theare crowded in the 1.5 million to 1.6 close to the 72 million TEU rebound of2020 rebound from the pandemic, themillionTEUrange.Infact,during 2010 (48 million TEUs is the optimis- b uMPsa long thew ateryr oad differencesbetweenthehavesandthe process of assembling the list, an tic tally) nonetheless the projected vol- If we took an ISS (Internationalhavenotsisevenmoreapparentasinformal count of the ports with over umes for 2021 represents a big bounceSpace Station) view of containerportssome containerports like those of the1millionTEUsinthroughputwas in global container throughput that willand shipping routes, the fragility of theU.S. West Coast are experiencing anunofficially150,astrikingnumber be hard to handle. containerized supply chain would beabsolutedelugeoninboundtraffic.consideringashorttimeagocross-easily apparent. Chokepoints abound.So much so that there are boxships ating that threshold would put a port in I nsIdet heb Igb ounCe Takethecaseofthe20,000TEUanchor awaiting berthswhile otherthemegacategory.Forexample, Funwithnumbers.Whilethereship Ever Given, which was wedgedportsarestrugglingtoregaintheirback in 1980, only four ports reported arenocomparableperiodsincon- acrosstheSuezCanalfornearlyapre-COVIDnumbers.Asaresult,morethan1millionTEUs:New tainerizationshistoryforwhathasweek in late March, thoroughly dis- the annualAJOTsTop 100 Contain- York/New Jersey, Rotterdam (Nether-occurredduringtheCOVIDyears,rupting the global supply chain. Theerports AZexperienced a bit of alands), Hong Kong and Kobe (Japan). thereweresomeearlyindicatorsofaccidentwasdescribedasaworstreshuffling as some ports fell out ofOne of the great difficulties in any port aTEUbounce-backinthemaking.(REBOUNDcontinued on page 30) the rankings while others emerged. (NOTEScontinued on page 30)TheNRF(NationalRetailFedera-tion)chartoutliningretailimports, pegged them at 21.8 million TEUs for 2018, 21.6 million TEUs for 2019the beginning of the pandemicand attheheight,22millionTEUsfor 2020.Inbrief,basicallythreefairly flat years as opposed to a descent into themaelstromthatcouldhavehap-pened.Thisdoesntmeanthatthe retail sector wasnt hit hard -in 2017 the sector posted 20.5 million import TEUs and in 2016notched 19.1 mil-lion TEUsbasically since 2011 until the pandemic adding a million TEUs has been pretty routine. So, three flat years is unusual, but a far cry from what could have happened. One of the reasonsforthesurprisingresilience wasthatwhileconsumerhabitsdid change and e-commerce took center stage,ocean-borneretailimports continuedunabated.Andnowwith the pandemic winding down, retail is likely to add at least a million TEUs tolastyearstotal.Itsworthlook-ing back at the Great Recession when retail numbers went from the trough in 2009 of 13.2 million import TEUs to 15.4 million import TEUs in 2010, a 2.2 million TEU increase. Would it be that surprising to see a similar leap for 2021?Of course, China is the answer to nearly all questions concerning global container flow. Back in 2019,China accountedforaround242million TEUs (UNCTAD figures) and the U.S. rankednumber#2at55.52million TEUsan incomprehensible gap of 186.48 million TEUs. Putanotherway,Shanghaithe worldslargestcontainerport(see AJOTs5millionTEUClubChart) had a 2019 throughput of 43.3 million TEUs(43.5millionTEUsin2020), roughlyonly12millionTEUsless than the entire U.S. total. This begs the question of whether Shanghais port total will eclipse that of the entire U.S. in the near future. [AlthoughNingbo-Zhoushansrapid rise to 28.72 million TEUs might beat both Shanghai and the U.S. in the not too distant future.]The disparity between China and the rest of the world is even clearer when looking at the world ports with over 5 million TEUs. Mainland China has 10 ports that in 2020 handled 5 million TEUs or more out of a global'