According to the weekly IAPH-WPSP Port Economic Impact Barometer, there is a global trend towards decreasing capacity utilization of liquid and dry bulk storage at ports.  

More and more ports are reporting under-utilization of liquid bulk storage facilities: 26% this week compared to a 15-23% range in the past six weeks. The share of ports with increased utilization levels in liquid bulk storage facilities has dropped to 13%, the lowest figure since the start of the survey. 

A similar development can be seen in the dry bulk sector: 32% of the ports report an under-utilization of facilities compared to a 17-25% range in the past six weeks. The share of ports with increased utilization levels in dry bulk storage has declined to 10% (also here the lowest figure to date).

Also, the report states that North American ports are experiencing less hinterland transit delays and better port worker availability.  The situation is on average far less disrupted than what can be observed around the world, particularly for trucks moving in and out of the port areas.  Except for rail, the number of ports confronted with disruptions in inland transport has remained below 20% throughout the survey period.

In addition, North American ports generally report few problems on port worker availability.  The figures for this week are much lower than for the global sample: zero shortages are reported for all port worker categories except for port authority staff, although some fluctuations are observed over the period of observation.