Port of Houston Sets New Annual Tonnage Record in 2017

The Port of Houston set new records in 2017 in terms of overall tonnage and TEUs handled, the Port of Houston Authority revealed this week.

Port Houston facilities reached the highest total tonnage in Port history of 38.3m tons, surpassing the previous record of 37.8m tons set in 2014.

It was also a record-setting year for container business. Port Houston handled 2.46 Million TEU for 2017; the previous record was set in 2016 with a volume of 2.18m TEUs, nearly a 13% increase year over year.

“We are again on our way to another tremendous year of opportunity and growth at Port Houston,” said Port Commission Chairman Janiece Longoria.

Additional achievements in 2017 included a 99 percent uptime in reliability for 22 ship-to-shore cranes and extending gate hours for truckers, as well as success for its Foreign Trade Zone (FTZ) #84 program.

With the strategic goal of providing infrastructure to meet demand, Executive Director Roger Guenther said the Port of Houston brought to substantial completion more than $200 million worth of construction contracts. Among those projects were the completion of both Container Yard 6 North and South including gantry cranes at Bayport Container terminals. At Barbours Cut terminal, rehab work at Wharf 2 was completed and improvements were made at its east end, while three new super post-Panamax STS cranes were received.

The Port of Houston comprises a 25-mile-long complex which includes 150-plus private and public industrial terminals along the 52-mile-long Houston Ship Channel. The eight public terminals are owned, operated, managed or leased by the Port of Houston Authority and include the general cargo terminals at the Turning Basin, Care, Jacintoport, Woodhouse, and the Barbours Cut and Bayport container terminals. The port is consistently ranked first in the United States in terms of foreign waterborne tonnage, U.S. imports, and U.S. export tonnage. It is also second in the U.S. in terms of total tonnage, and considered one of the nation’s leading breakbulk port, handling 41 percent of project cargo at Gulf Coast ports.

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