Little Port That Could

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are the nation’s busiest gateways for imported goods, though not for the BMW in your driveway or the bananas in your kitchen.

The car from Germany and the fruit from Ecuador dock instead in Ventura County at the Port of Hueneme (pronounced why-NEE-me), the only deep-water commercial harbor between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay.

The Port of Hueneme is so small that it can’t be seen from the nearest freeway, so tranquil even on the busiest days that a visitor can drive directly up to the main gate to chat with the sole security guard. Covering 165 acres, it could fit inside a single shipping terminal at its 7,500-acre cargo competitor in Los Angeles.

But Hueneme is proving that a port doesn’t have to be super-sized to succeed.

Hueneme, which was dependent on the Navy for most of its business until 1984, is poised for its busiest year ever. Traffic is up by more than 14% from the first three months of the port’s last fiscal year. It is No. 1 in California in handling banana imports and ranks second in motor vehicle imports.

“This was the little port that wouldn’t die, and now it’s at the top of its game,” said William J. Buenger, executive director of the Oxnard Harbor District, which owns and operates the port.

Experts call Hueneme one of the nation’s best examples of a niche port. Unlike the giant hubs that dominate the West Coast for a flotilla of merchandise, niche ports prosper by focusing.

For the Port of Hueneme that means concentrating on, in the arcane terminology of the maritime industry, perishable “break-bulk” or loose commodities, such as fruit, that are carried on “reefers,” or refrigerated cargo vessels. It also means substantial traffic in “ro-ro” -- that’s for roll-on, roll-off cargo -- including farm vehicles, construction and military equipment and motor vehicles.

Between August and October, the port moved 81,800 metric tons of cars and sport utility vehicles, up 62% from the same period last year; traffic in other types of vehicles, including farm equipment, rose more than 32%.

According to the most recent statistics from the World Institute for Strategic Economic Research in Holyoke, Mass., the Port of Hueneme handled more than $106 million in banana imports in the 12 months ended Oct. 31. That was nearly twice as much as its nearest California competitor, the port of Long Beach -- which Chiquita Brands International Inc. ditched in favor of Hueneme in November.

Cincinnati-based Chiquita shifted its operations for “greater flexibility” in moving its produce on time, a company spokesman said. That, according to experts, can be translated to mean that Chiquita wanted to avoid the other ports’ notorious congestion.

Hueneme doesn’t necessarily hammer on that when it courts fresh-produce companies. It also touts its proximity to the state’s agricultural heart. To capitalize on that, the port built the region’s first on-dock refrigerated warehouse in 1993, and Sherman Oaks-based Sunkist Growers Inc. has used Hueneme to ship all Japan-bound fruit ever since.

“When Hueneme opened a dockside refrigerated warehouse, there was nothing similar at Long Beach or Los Angeles,” said Sunkist spokeswoman Claire Smith, adding: “We have seen delays at those ports but not at Hueneme. It’s a very efficient little port.”

Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc., based in Coral Gables, Fla., has been shipping through the port since 1978. Ecuador banana exporter Grupo Noboa’s Bonita brand signed up in 1999, said Will Berg, director of marketing and trade-zone services for the port.

But the biggest growth in business has been in machinery and transport equipment, a category that has surpassed $4 billion in total value in each of the last three years; only the Port of Los Angeles unloads more.

Hueneme’s growth isn’t a shocker. The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have had a tough time keeping up with record increases in containership traffic, and that has left importers and exporters few options but to look elsewhere.

South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Co. moved from Los Angeles in 2004 when it saw its planned expansion of North American sales running aground for lack of space at the giant port.

“Los Angeles was too small for our growing volume, and they weren’t interested in giving us more space,” said Marv Baisden, chief operating officer of Glovis America Inc., the shipping arm of Hyundai Motor America and Hyundai affiliate Kia Motors America Inc. “Hueneme is giving us significantly more space and more growth potential.”

For BMW of Germany, which relies on four Atlantic Coast ports to distribute its vehicles in the Eastern U.S., Hueneme is the main port of call on the West Coast. Other automakers, including Ford Motor Co.’s Jaguar and Land Rover, Mazda Motor Corp., DaimlerChrysler’s Mercedes-Benz, Mitsubishi Motors Corp., BMW’s Rolls-Royce, General Motors Corp.’s Saab and Suzuki Motor Corp., also use Hueneme, port Executive Director Buenger said.

Many of the vehicles arrive on ships owned by Wallenius Wilhelmsen of Sweden. When it consolidated its operations from nine West Coast ports to three in the 1990s, it made sure Hueneme was in the mix.

“It’s close to the Southern California auto market,” said Len Mazzella, Western vice president for Wallenius Wilhelmsen, “and didn’t have congestion issues.”

Because it specializes, Hueneme doesn’t need to spend as much as rivals do on infrastructure, said Peter V. Hall, a professor at the University of Waterloo in Canada who has studied port development. Reefer and ro-ro cargo ships are small and don’t require the deepest of channels, and ro-ro cargo comes off the ship under its own power, which alleviates the need for heavy lifting equipment.

“In an environment where there is very little congestion, your inland costs go down,” said Jean-Paul Rodrigue, a geography professor at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., who specializes in globalization, logistics and the geography of freight transport.

“Your inventory can arrive when it’s needed, and you as a customer can guarantee that you will be a priority and that there won’t be any problems getting your [products] out of the port.”

Hueneme’s natural benefits -- a relatively deep channel shielded from high seas and bad weather by the Channel Islands -- have long been known. A tribe of the Chumash Indian nation that lives on Anacapa Island, 14 miles off the coast, named it “Huenema,” or “place of rest,” and the tribe’s fishermen stopped there.

By 1872, it was a single 1,500-foot wharf port serving the California agricultural industry. The Oxnard Harbor District was formed in 1937. During World War II and again during the Vietnam War, the port was primarily a military staging area. In recent years, it has returned to its agricultural roots and developed as a major ro-ro center.

Most of the rest of the West Coast’s ports, as well as others in Canada and Mexico, are making plans to spend or are spending billions on what the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has called “a race to the bottom,” developing ports with navigable depths of 50 feet or more to accommodate the next generation of giant containerships.

Hueneme has no such plans, and locals are thankful -- to a point.

“The port is big enough. That is the bottom line. Any expansion is going to affect the quality of life in Oxnard and around it,” said Larry Godwin, 64, a retired civil service physicist and a member of the Saviers Road Design Team, a citizens group.

Anyway, experts figure Hueneme doesn’t need to grow much.

“Niche cargo can still be a way to get into the trade without incurring a lot of expense,” the University of Waterloo’s Hall said, “and a port like Hueneme can do very well.”