In issue 740 of the Sea-Intelligence Sunday Spotlight, we analysed the laden import volume throughput of the major North America West Coast (NAWC) ports, through the first three quarters of 2025. Our analysis revealed a significant divergence in handled volumes: while Canadian ports performed in line with their pre-pandemic benchmarks, all major US West Coast ports underperformed. Amid this regional underperformance, the Port of Los Angeles successfully consolidated its position, capturing a larger share of the total NAWC market.
The Canadian ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert saw 2025-Q3 growth that was broadly consistent with their 2017-2019 pre-pandemic averages. In contrast, all major California ports and the Northwest Seaport Alliance (NWSA, A partnership between the ports of Seattle and Tacoma) underperformed their historical benchmarks, with NWSA seeing the largest negative deviation. This divergence directly drove the market share shifts seen in Figure 1.
Figure 1 shows how this divergent performance impacted each port's share of the total NAWC laden import volumes through the first three quarters of 2025. The data reveals a significant consolidation of market share within the San Pedro Bay port complex, which in aggregate grew from 68.9% of NAWC laden imports in 2025-Q1 to 70.7% in 2025-Q3. (....)