How port authorities are shoring up Houston’s $800B-a-year ship channel for the future

Seen from the Houston Ship Channel on Friday, ExxonMobil’s vast refinery and chemical complex in Baytown seemed a city unto itself. Farther along the waterway, massive wind turbines lay beside an oil tanker. 

The Greater Houston Port Bureau’s tour of the channel was aimed at raising awareness of its importance and ongoing efforts to improve it.

The channel boasts 272 chemical plants, refineries, petroleum storage facilities and other industrial facilities, bureau President Capt. William Diehl said.

“We’re the largest manufacturing center in the world,” Diehl said. “I don’t think people frame it that way.”

A towboat pushes a barge up he Houston Ship Channel on Friday, Sept. 30, 2022 in Houston.Elizabeth Conley/Staff photographer

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To support these businesses, the channel is being widened and deepened in a $1 billion project. It will enable longer, heavier ships to traverse the channel. Port Houston, which oversees the ship channel, awarded dredging contracts in June.

The channel is vital to the industrial and commercial facilities along its banks that generate about $800 billion in business each year — about 20 percent of the state’s gross domestic product — and $38 billion a year in tax revenue, Diehl said.

Port Houston leads the nation in exports of oil, refined products and fuels such as propane, ethane and butane. It is also No. 1 in exports of ethylene, propylene, butylene and butadiene — chemicals used in plastics, detergents and rubber.

Dredging the channel will allow it to accommodate larger and heavier ships, helping to reduce traffic and emissions along the channel and help make companies doing business along it more efficient. 

Widening the waterway will open it to the largest commercial ships whose movements along some parts of the channel is limited by their size, 

A dredger makes its way down the Houston Ship Channel as part of routine maintenance on Friday, Sept. 30, 2022 in Houston.Elizabeth Conley/Staff photographer

Elizabeth Conley/Staff photographer

Rather than wait for federal funds, Port Houston kicked in about half the project’s price tag to move it along. Roger Gunther, Port Houston’s executive director, said the port likely shaved “three to four” years off the project’s timeline by doing so, because “we can’t wait.”

“We’re doing this at warp speed,” Gunther said. “It’s the model for the nation on how to get stuff done.” 

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The work, known as Project 11, also will enable the channel to lift a rule restricting large ships from the channel after dark. The rule helps keep the channel safe in its current state, “because our channel is so narrow and the ships are so large,” said Capt. Robert Thompson, presiding officer of the Houston Pilots.

All this time and money going into the channel to ensure it is deep and wide enough for modern commerce raises questions about the interplay with the potential Ike Dike project, a 22-foot coastal barrier proposed to protect the channel from hurricane flood surges. The Ike Dike’s floodgates alone — where large ships would enter — are expected to take up to 20 years to install. 

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1of11Storage facilities along the Houston Ship Channel on Friday, Sept. 30, 2022 in Houston.Elizabeth Conley/Staff photographerShow MoreShow Less 2of11Water is pushed outside the barge “Reference Point” as its docked in the Houston Ship Channel with the Greater Houston Port Bureau on Friday, Sept. 30, 2022 in Houston.Elizabeth Conley/Staff photographerShow MoreShow Less 3of11Barges docked in the Houston Ship Channel on Friday, Sept. 30, 2022 in Houston.Elizabeth Conley/Staff photographerShow MoreShow Less 4of11Grain flows into the bulk carrier “African Puffin” on the Houston Ship Channel with the Greater Houston Port Bureau on Friday, Sept. 30, 2022 in Houston.Elizabeth Conley/Staff photographerShow MoreShow Less 5of11A barge docked along the Houston Ship Channel with the Greater Houston Port Bureau on Friday, Sept. 30, 2022 in Houston.Elizabeth Conley/Staff photographerShow MoreShow Less 6of11A towboat pushes a barge up he Houston Ship Channel on Friday, Sept. 30, 2022 in Houston.Elizabeth Conley/Staff photographerShow MoreShow Less 7of11A towboat pushes a barge up he Houston Ship Channel on Friday, Sept. 30, 2022 in Houston.Elizabeth Conley/Staff photographerShow MoreShow Less 8of11A towboat pushes a barge up he Houston Ship Channel on Friday, Sept. 30, 2022 in Houston.Elizabeth Conley/Staff photographerShow MoreShow Less 9of11Tow boats make their way up the Houston Ship Channel on Friday, Sept. 30, 2022 in Houston.Elizabeth Conley/Staff photographerShow MoreShow Less 10of11Brad Miller, VP of Operations at Kinder Morgan talks about the Houston Ship Channel before a boat tour of the waterway with the Greater Houston Port Bureau on Friday, Sept. 30, 2022 in Houston.Elizabeth Conley/Staff photographerShow MoreShow Less 11of11Brad Miller, VP of Operations at Kinder Morgan talks about the Houston Ship Channel before a boat tour of the waterway with the Greater Houston Port Bureau on Friday, Sept. 30, 2022 in Houston.Elizabeth Conley/Staff photographerShow MoreShow Less

What will the needs of modern commerce be in 20 years? How big will the ships be?

These are questions that worry Thompson. 

“We don’t want anybody to flood; we’re just concerned,” he said. “A lot of thought has to go into the size of the gate.”

It’s another subject being studied by the Greater Houston Port Bureau, Diehl said. “We’re doing our homework on it.”

amanda.drane@chron.com