Port Houston is once again ranked the top waterway in the U.S., according to a report issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE).
The sheer volume of tonnage passing through the port, compared to the report’s runner-up, is so large that the difference alone is greater than 97% of ports in the country. The most recent available data from 2023 cataloged 309.6 million short tons of cargo moved through the Port Houston Channel, a 5.3% increase from the previous year.
Record-breaking is a regular occurrence for the port as operations are continually improved to handle increasingly larger volumes each year. Port officials noted that 2024 was a landmark year, culminating in more than 53 million tons of cargo moved through public terminal processing. Those numbers indicate a 6% increase compared to 2023, including a total increase in container volume of 8%.
This year has its own share of record-breaking events as well. January saw the largest amount of twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in the port’s history pass through, totaling 356,407 TEUs. That amount represents a 7% increase for container cargo handled compared to the same month in 2024.
The channel serves more than 200 private and eight public terminals, making it one of the busiest and most economically impactful trade points in the country. As a result, port operations support more than 3 million jobs across the nation and produce more than $906 billion in annual economic activity. The port handles around 12% of the nation’s total waterborne tonnage.
By Carol M. Highsmith via Wikimedia Commons