J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. has opened a transload facility on the West Coast to handle international cargo, a first for the Lowell-based company.
The new facility in the Los Angeles area will help J.B. Hunt accelerate the delivery of overseas freight through a long-term multivessel deal, the company said in a Wednesday news release. Transloading refers to the transfer of goods from one mode of transportation to the other.
"The increase in import activity over recent years has created a bottleneck at the port, resulting in inefficient delays and rising costs," Shelley Simpson, chief commercial officer and executive vice president of people and human resources at J.B. Hunt said in a statement. "We are providing customers with a complete solution that not only alleviates those challenges, it can accelerate their ability to meet domestic demand by offering a seamless port, transload, and domestic outbound move."
J.B. Hunt declined to say how much it was investing in the new operation. The facility located in Commerce, Calif., just outside of Los Angeles and will serve ports in Southern California, including Los Angeles and Long Beach.
The port of Los Angeles had a 16% market U.S. share in 2021, and ranked 17th in the world, according to the port's website. The port handled 10.7 million twenty-foot equivalent unit containers last year, up from 9.2 million twenty-foot equivalent unit containers in 2020.
Marc Scott an assistant professor in the supply chain management department at the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville said via email that J.B. Hunt's move into the Los Angeles and Long Beach area means increased supply chain efficiency and customer service and helps the company's goals of environmental stewardship.
"This ultimately results in improved flow of goods and reduced costs associated with those flows," Scott said about the new facility.
He said on the environmental side of things, transloading services, among other advantages, help relieve port congestion, reduce truck idling time and wait times and have some effect on reduction of green house gasses.
The J.B. Hunt facility includes a 91,000-square-foot warehouse and 8 acres of parking for up to 300 containers and is located close to both port and rail terminals, the company said.
In November, J.B. Hunt said it had retooled one of its facilities in Jersey City, N.J., to transfer and prepare ocean freight for inland transport, serving its customers in the New York area.
J.B. Hunt shares closed at $162.78, down less than 1% in trading Wednesday on the Nasdaq. Shares have traded as low as $153.92 and as high as $218.18 over the past year.