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The products that come through the port — while typically not those used every day by your average consumer — play a critical role in the region and the entire West. More than 90 percent of all the fertilizer — both dry bulk and liquid fertilizers — used in the agriculturally rich San Joaquin Valley comes through the port.

Another product, cement, had come back strong in the past couple of years.

"In 2014, we had six cement ships. This past year, we had 20," Aschieris said. "That's a lot of cement."

And while the volume of one product — low-sulfur coal — has decreased significantly (down about 1 million tons in the past one or two years), the increased volume in steel imports is filling the void.

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Mostly, the loads consist of 480-foot-long rails that go directly to a port-based facility operated by Union Pacific Railroad where three of them are welded together to create super-long rails more than four football fields long with just two welds that are shipped out via rail throughout the Western United States.

"That's a good project that has been operating for over a full year now," Aschieris said.