Caption: The Port Commission at the port's September public meeting.

The investments being made at Port Houston continue to pay off. 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 larger and larger vessels calling its container facilities.

Port Houston just received its largest container ship to date, a 9,500 twenty-foot equivalent (TEU) vessel.

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 in September when more than 5,700 container moves were handled on one of the port’s East Asian services.

Port Houston leadership concluded the month of August by delivering strong results. Overall tonnage for the year at nearly 28 million tons reflects an 8 percent increase over last year. Steel tonnage remained steady through August, reflecting growth of 29 percent for the year.

Year-to-date activity continues to be strong with a port-wide increase of 11 percent overall in TEUs. Loaded container units are up 10 percent compared to last year.

Port Houston alone handles more than two-thirds of all U.S. Gulf container traffic.