The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is providing agricultural and other exporters assistance in covering expenses involved in using the pop-up yard opened in March at the Port of Oakland. The funding is for the temporary staging of loaded export containers at the temporary container yard, set up to help relieve port congestion.
The USDA is offering a $400 incentive per export reefer and $200 per dry container. In addition, it is offering a $125 incentive to pick up an empty dry container used for agricultural booking.
“This will help defray the additional costs incurred by our shippers and make usage of the new facility more feasible,” said the port’s Maritime Director Bryan Brandes. “The temporary yard provides a place for truckers to easily pick up empty containers to be loaded with US exports and it allows for staging loaded containers ready to be shipped overseas without crowding busy terminals.”
“We continue to work closely with ocean carriers to restore services here so that shippers can have more opportunity for outbound vessel space,” said Brandes.
Great idea.
Sadly, most ships hesitate to call at Oakland due to the militant port services there. Makes you wonder why more ships don’t go there, given the back ups at LA/LB terminals, yes? I’m sure there is more to it. But given the long lines and other delaying issues further south on the California coast, the Port of Oakland hasn’t exactly boomed with proportional additional work to relieve the problems in SoCal.