The remaking of Lanai’s Four Seasons hotels is keeping Young Brothers Ltd. cargo shipments flowing between Hono­lulu and the former Pineapple Island.

But the additional construction activity during the July-to-September period wasn’t enough to keep volume of the state’s largest interisland shipper from declining for the first time in six quarters.

Young Brothers said ahead of a report due out Tuesday that intrastate cargo shipments slipped 2.1 percent in the third quarter on a year-over-year basis to 33,099 container/platform equivalents from 33,806 CPEs in the year-earlier quarter.

Lanai was hardly to blame for the drop, however, as its shipments rose 20 percent — the highest increase between ports — to 1,426 CPEs from 1,188 CPEs in the year-earlier period. That follows on the heels of a 60.4 percent spike in second-quarter shipments to and from Lanai. Through nine months, Lanai shipments were up 40.6 percent to easily outdistance all other neighbor island ports.

Billionaire Larry Ellison, who owns 98 percent of Lanai after his June 2012 purchase, has been ferrying over construction supplies to renovate the 217-room Four Seasons Resort Lanai at Manele Bay. Ellison’s management company Pulama Lana‘i plans to exclusively house workers in the 102-room Four Seasons Lodge at Koele starting in January to expedite renovation at Manele Bay, where work is being conducted in two phases. The Lodge at Koele is expected to be closed to the public until late 2015. Pulama Lana‘i also intends to rework parts of the Manele hotel.

Roy Catalani, Young Brothers vice president, said the overall quarterly drop in cargo volume indicates "some softening in neighbor island economies."

"The bar was set high last year, so we knew going into July of this year that it would be a tough comparison and difficult to maintain the trend of finishing on the plus side," he said.

For the first nine months of the year, overall shipments were up 0.6 percent.

Young Brothers’ cargo shipments between Oahu and six neighbor island ports declined in the July-September period for all trade lanes but Lanai and Hilo, which was up 3.4 percent.

Higher-than-normal cargo was moved to Hawaii island last quarter to help the Puna area recover from Tropical Storm Iselle with repairs to electricity, telephone and cable infrastructure.

Volume decreased during the quarter for Kahu­lui (4.2 percent); Kawai­hae, Hawaii island (4.6 percent); Na­wili­wili, Kauai (6 percent); and Kau­na­ka­kai, Molo­kai (3.9 percent).

Although Lanai showed the largest percentage increase, the amount of cargo represented just 4.3 percent of all cargo shipped and was just a fraction of the nearly 12,000 CPEs shipped during the quarter between the busiest trade lane of Oahu and Maui.

Young Brothers uses the CPE measurement to compare cargo volumes across different sizes of containers.

The shipper said industry segments showing strength during the quarter included government shipments and utilities. Food and beverage, along with recycling, were among those sectors declining.

Outbound agricultural cargo volume statewide jumped 10.3 percent from the year-earlier quarter to continue an upward trend. The double-digit gain followed a 5.7 percent increase in the second quarter. For the first nine months, agricultural volume was up 7.3 percent from the year-earlier period.

Agricultural exports increased at four ports: Hilo (6.3 percent), Kawai­hae (79.9 percent), Na­wili­wili (38.2 percent) and Kau­na­ka­kai (19.2 percent). Agricultural exports declined 1.5 percent for Hono­lulu and 8.9 percent for Kahu­lui. There were no agricultural shipments from Lanai.

"The increase in ag cargo demonstrates that demand for locally grown food remains strong," Cata­lani said.

However, the large increase in cargo from Kawai­hae was due in large part to limited-period demands for landscaping projects on Lanai and livestock movements on other islands, Cata­lani added.