The backlog of ships outside the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach — America’s largest gateway for ocean freight — is poised to worsen. There’s now a record of 80 container vessels waiting off Southern California, with more on the way from Asia. The bottleneck that started almost exactly a year ago shows little sign of letting up, according to a Bloomberg analysis shipping data. Container ships mass outside of Los Angeles/Long Beach on Oct. 22, with more vessels destined for the ports on the way. With the waiting area off Los Angeles starting to stretch further and further off the coast, Bloomberg’s Port Congestion Tracker has rebenched its anchorage area for the ports to more accurately show the total ships in queue. While counts for ships in port remain the same, total counts have ballooned to 112, surpassing Singapore for the world’s third-largest holding area for […]