JUNE 2026 American Journal of Transportation American Journal of Transportation 29 The Port of Long Beach. 1 Million Reasons to Invest. $1 million for the first ship to fuel with methanol on a commercial scale in Long Beach – another way we’re INVESTING in the Port of the Future. The Port of Savannah handled 4.7 million TEU fiscal year to date (July 1, 2025 – April 30, 2026). (Georgia Ports) AJOT’s Top 100 Container Ports By George Lauriat, AJOT Although geo-political shifts have yo-yoed container shipping movements and freight rates over the last two years, the number of TEUs (twenty-foot equiva- lent units) that were handled by the world’s largest ports in 2025 represented a solid year for con- tainer shipping business. How- ever, there is a large, and getting larger, caveat buried in port fig- ures — the dislocation of trade routes in the Middle East due to the ongoing conflict, both in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf has had a significant impact on container ports and shipping routes that is still continuing. If geo-political tensions remain a spanner in the global economic works through 2026, next year’s numbers may look considerably worse than 2025. Already containership operators are regularly ‘blanking’ sailings and smaller to mid-sized containers have thus far suffered that most, but that could change should the economics of 2026- 27 dictate schedule cutbacks for the ocean carrier alliances. The silver lining that has in the past propped up TEU numbers, is the resilience of the US economy. But will it happen again is still difficult to ascertain as the first half of 2026 ends. Asian Dominance: Shanghai, a Leader Among Leaders However, looking at the 2025 port throughout numbers from a big-picture point of view, the mega-container ports are growing fast and so are the ships calling at the container termi- nals. It is remarkable that there are now 20 mega-container ports worldwide that have an annual throughput of over 10 million TEUs, beginning with Shanghai with an astounding throughput in 2025 of over 55 million TEUs. [See the “The 10 Million TEU Club” chart] Singapore in the 2nd position posted over 44 million TEUs, while Ningbo-Zhoushan notched 43 million TEUs. Inter- estingly, back in 2022, Shanghai was the only 40 million TEU port in the world — and the TEU gap between Shanghai and Singa- pore was about 10 million TEUs and now it is about 11 million TEUs. And number three Ning- bo-Zhoushan, is about 12 million TEUs behind Shanghai. Just in a way of comparison, the larg- est container port in the United States is the Port of Los Ange- les, which posted a throughput of 10.24 million TEUs in 2025 — a number smaller than the gap between Shanghai and its two closest competitors. And when it comes to the top ten mega-container ports it is all about Asia as nine of the ten container ports in the top are in Asia, with six of them located, like Shanghai and Ning- bo-Zhoushan, in China. The first non-Asian port on the list is the UAE, Port of Jebel Ali ranked number nine in the world. And the first European port on the list is the hub container port, Rotterdam with a throughout of 14.2 million TEUs. Even in the group 11-to-20, six of the ports are located in Asia. European Container Ports European ports have been caught in the middle by a number of geo-political events, ranging from the conflict in the Middle East, US tariff pol- icies and the de-risking from China movement. Nonetheless, while the container flows were erratic, overall volumes in 2025 remained in line with the previ- ous two years. The Port of Rotterdam (11th on the chart), located in the Netherlands, remains Europe’s “hub” port, posting 14.2 mil- lion TEUs in 2025 with around 55% of the TEU total related to China. But the Belgium dual port of Antwerp-Bruges (13th on the chart) isn’t far behind at 13.63 million TEUs and increasingly is becoming an important alter- native hub for North Europe’s container business, despite industrial action and congestion issues in 2025. Interestingly, (TOP – continued on page 32)
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