Saturation Across Mexican Ports

Earlier this week, we shared a piece on port saturation in Mexico. More specifically, about how we attempted to provide an initial snapshot of how saturated ports are likely to be in the near future—and how often they experience drastic saturation.

In that essay, we limited out analysis to monthly trends at the four largest ports in Mexico: Manzanillo, Lazaro Cardenas, Veracruz, and Altamira. This does give an initial approximation at how ports are likely to behave in 2025 based on historical data.

However, we understand that logistics is an ever changing world, and monthly predictions might be too broad to plan with precision.

So, at Auba, we wanted to go even deeper into the cyclical nature of Mexico’s top ports. To do so, we decided to look at week to week trends over the last five years instead of monthly patterns. Then, we plotted these individually for each port and compared the trends to the average traffic exhibited between 2019 and 2023. While these are only estimates, given historical trends, these could well be the best estimates to plan shipments in 2025 based on port activity.

First, we found that Lázaro Cárdenas exhibits a highly variant structure week to week, with noticeable off weeks between weeks 9 and 16, as well as after week 42. Meanwhile, between weeks 17 and 41, the port records high peaks of activity that could well correlate to disruptions from saturation.

Similarly, for Manzanillo, we found a concentrated active period starting week 16 and ending week 32. This, of course, is far shorter than Lázaro Cárdenas and suggests that there are far fewer busy weeks at the port even though it handles more cargo in total than its rival.

Veracruz, on the other hand, exhibits traffic increases as early as week 10 and, although there is a hiatus between weeks 20 and 28, thereafter, the port goes through a number of additional increases in traffic, thus suggesting a volatile nature to the port during the second half of the year.

Finally, for Altamira, we found a great variance week to week when it came to activity, with a number of peaks concentrating between week 12 and week 39. Aftewrwards, however, the sudden changes in activity continue albeit they tend to fall below average traffic for the period. This suggests that Altamira is similar in volatility to Lázaro Cárdenas, which shippers should consider when planning routes.

Put together, these graphs show a snapshot of Mexican trade and how top ports tend to behave. As companies decide to use Mexico as a manufacturing hub through nearshoring, they should consider these trends to better plan their supply chain strategies.

Interested in learning more? Follow our newsletter: