The investments being made to Port Houston’s channel continue to pay off, the port stated in its latest announcement.
As a result of the completion of the widening and deepening of its Bayport Channel and work on what’s known as the Bayport flare, Port Houston is seeing rapid growth in the size of ships calling its container facilities.
Later this week, Port Houston is expected to receive its largest container ship to date, a 9,500 twenty-foot equivalent (TEU) vessel, Port Commission Chairman of the Port of Houston Authority, Janiece Longoria , announced Tuesday, during the Port Commission regular meeting.
“This is sign of the future for the container industry and we must continue to make the investments to handle these vessels of the next generation ,” Chairman Longoria said as part of her announcement.
Port Houston last week received an 8,450 TEU vessel to Bayport. As another example of the growing demand, in July the port recorded the largest number of container lifts on one vessel in its history at 4,800 lifts.
That record has since been shattered twice, the latest being earlier this month when more than 5,700 container moves were handled on one of the port’s East Asian services, Longoria added.
Before concluding, Chairman Longoria underscored some of the advocacy efforts given by Port Commission members, staff and herself to top leadership of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the greater interests of the Houston Ship Channel to stress the requirements for widening and deepening of the busiest waterway in the nation to serve the industry and maintain efficient two-way traffic.