WASHINGTON: The Port of Houston’s volume of full import containers posted a 20.4 percent year-over-year gain in June, pushing the port’s overall container volume to more than 1 million 20-foot-equivalent units for the first half of the year.
Houston handled 80,159 TEUs of loaded imports in June, according to PIERS, a sister product of JOC.com within IHS Markit. Through the first half of 2016, the port’s laden imports totaled 414,050 TEUs, a decline of 6.1 percent from a year earlier, when shipments spiked during West Coast port congestion. PIERS export totals for June are not yet available. Total volume of full and empty imports and exports rose 7 percent in June, to 179,491 TEUs, but dropped 4 percent during the first six months of this year, to 1,085,919 TEUs, the port’s statistics show.
Roger Guenther, the port authority’s executive director, said year-to-year comparisons during the first half of the year were skewed by the unusually high volumes in early 2015, but that the port’s container volume “continues to be very resilient.” “It’s tough to compare 2016 versus 2015 on the container side, because at this point last year container volume had spiked at an 18 percent increase over the prior year,” Guenther told port commissioners at a meeting Tuesday. Guenther noted that overall container traffic topped the million-TEU mark during the first half of 2015, and said “activity has exceeded our expectations for the year thus far.”
The port’s overall volume topped 2 million TEUs last year for the first time. Houston handles two-thirds of total U.S. Gulf containerized shipments. Newly announced Panama Canal services from Asia should produce further increases later this year, Guenther said. “We are optimistic about the second half of 2016, with the traction already gained in the East Asia trade,” he said.
Houston recently attracted its third weekly Asian service, a Panama Canal vessel string shared by Maersk Line and Mediterranean Shipping Co. The port hopes to gain additional services from impending realignments of carrier alliances, and expects to handle up to 500,000 TEUs of additional shipments of resins when new and expanded petrochemical plants in the region hit full production.
