US WEST COAST imports were up three per cent and exports increased nine per cent year on year in the first six months of the year, said the Pacific Maritime Association, the terminal operators group.

JAPANESE shipping giant MOL`s on-time-arrival rates have slipped on transpacific and Asia-Europe routes from April to June compared to the previous quarter, but improved remarkably on transatlantic as well as achieving improvement from Asia to the US east coast.

On the Asia-US west coast run, there was a slip for on-time arrivals at 88 per cent compared to the 93 per cent achieved in the preceding January to March quarter. (There were no year-on-year figures available.) The July-to-September 2010 on-time score was 98 per cent of arrivals and in the October-to-December period on-times hit 97 per cent.


Asia-Europe voyages were 90 per cent on time from April to June, but not as good as the 92 per cent achieved in the previous January-to-March quarter. Better still was the July-to-September period in which voyages were 93 per cent on time, followed by a slip to 89 per cent in the October-to-December period.


On Asia-US east coast runs, MOL did better in terms of improvement, scoring 86 per cent on time from April to June against 83 per cent from January to March. In the October to December quarter, the score was again 86 per cent while during the previous July-to-September quarter, on-times slipped to 84 per cent.


Transatlantic voyages showed a remarkable improvement rising from 50 per cent on-time in the January-to-March quarter to 90 per cent in the April to June period. July to September, MOL ships were 83 per cent and 89 per cent on time from October to December.


The main reason for delays, said MOL, was port congestion at Chinese ports and closures because of bad weather.


Under its method of calculation, MOL said when a vessel arrives at its the first port of call in both directions within 24 hours of scheduled time of arrival, the voyage is regarded as "on-time".