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Shipping rates, which have been bobbing up and down over the last two years, should decline slightly this year on the Asia-to-U.S. route as ocean carriers take delivery of new vessels and pull anchor on some mothballed rigs.

In addition, four new shipping lines are starting up service on the trans-Pacific route to join the pool of 24 carriers that already ply the waters between Asia and the West Coast.

“There is some room for rates to drop,” said Tan Hua Joo, an executive consultant with Alphaliner, which gathers information for the shipping industry. Currently, the spot rate to ship a 40-foot container from Hong Kong to Los Angeles is around $1,781, compared with $2,012 last year.

Joo was one of several speakers and panelists participating in the 11th annual Trans-Pacific Maritime Conference, organized every year by the Journal of Commerce at the Long Beach Convention Center, which affords a wide view of the region’s massive ports in Long Beach, Calif., and Los Angeles. The event is a confab of trucking companies, railroad executives, logistics providers, customs brokers, retailers, longshore workers, port executives and shipping lines.

This year’s event was more upbeat than last year’s, when ocean-carrier executives were shaking their heads and lamenting that the industry had lost $17 billion in 2009. But that all changed in early 2010, when consumers came out of hibernation and rediscovered the path to the mall. “By the first quarter of 2010, all of us were surprised by the strength of the recovery prompted by global stimulus programs led by the United States, Europe and China,” said the event’s keynote speaker, C.C. Tung, chairman and chief executive of Orient Overseas Limited, a shipping line based in Hong Kong.

The surge in goods making their way to the United States sent freight rates skyrocketing in 2010 compared with 2009, when shipping lines were bleeding money and had anchored hundreds of vessels off the coastlines of Singapore and the Philippines. In early 2010, as demand ramped up, it took a while for container-ship supplies to catch up with demand.

But this year is a different story. The number of idle ships has dwindled from 581 in early 2010 to about 100 today, or 2 percent of the container-line fleet. “That amount of idling had never been seen before for such an extended period of time,” Joo said. “But in six months, from January last year, this idling fleet decreased significantly.”

Shipping companies are feeling so confident, they are taking delivery of new vessels that are bigger and better. Industry experts estimate that worldwide demand for goods being shipped this year will climb 8 percent to 9 percent. At the same time, new container vessel capacity will inch up 9 percent with an increase of about 1.3 million TEUs (20-foot containers). Most of the ships being delivered will carry more than 10,000 20-foot containers with larger vessels sailing on the Asia-to-Europe route and smaller ships cascading onto the trans-Pacific route, where dock space is limited for mega-ships. Slow-steaming ahead

Because of rising fuel prices, shipping lines expect to continue with their habit of slow-steaming, or sailing at reduced speeds to get better mileage on their bunker fuel. The practice adds a few days to the watery route. With bunker fuel selling for about $641 a ton, compared with $476 a ton last year, shipping lines are desperate to save on operating costs. “Bunker-fuel costs accounted for 18 percent of operating costs in 2010,” Tung said, noting that six or seven years ago, it accounted for only 9 percent of costs.

Currently, about 50 percent of ships on the trans-Pacific route are sailing slower, compared with 80 percent of the ships on the Asia–to–East Coast (via the Panama Canal) route.

One bump in the road this year will be the supply of cargo containers, which hasn’t kept up with demand. In 2009, very few new containers were ordered, and Chinese container manufacturers are still having a hard time redeploying their labor force. “This is a critical issue, in our view, as we go forward,” Joo said. “Ten years ago, there were almost three container boxes for every slot [on a ship], and that has dropped to two boxes.”

Furthermore, the price of 20-foot containers has climbed to $3,000, the highest price in 20 years, Joo said. “That is putting pressure on carriers because they don’t want to order many boxes at that price because they think box prices will fall later.”

Cargo-container lines will have to be more efficient in container use while perhaps raising rates for the time importers keep containers at their warehouses. All’s well on the waterfront

Labor issues at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach shouldn’t be a problem this year because the contract between terminal operators and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union doesn’t expire until 2014. But the ports’ contract with the 950-strong office-clerks union, ILWU Local 63, expired 10 months ago. Progress has been slow getting both sides to agree on a new contract.

Bob McEllrath, international president of the ILWU, was speaking at the trans-Pacific conference with Jim McKenna, president and chief executive of the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents the marine terminal operators. McEllrath said he was hoping to sit down with the clerks union and the port negotiators to see if something could be resolved.

Both McKenna and McEllrath agreed they will have to work closer together in the future to assure shippers that the Southern California ports will improve efficiency and loading times. That involves implementing more technology, which has been a sticking point between the two sides. But everyone in the West is feeling the threat of the Panama Canal expansion project, which should be finished in 2014 or 2015. Upon completion, many shippers may choose an all-water route to the East Coast instead of unloading their goods in Los Angeles or Long Beach and then shipping them by rail or truck across the country.

Currently, about 43 percent of all inbound container cargo to the United States arrives at the Los Angeles/Long Beach port complex, the largest in the country.

“We’ve told the PMA we would not fight automation under one condition,” McEllrath said. “We fix the new machines and repair them, and our guys are trained in IT [information technology] to keep them working.”