By David Taylor, Managing Editor
Jordan Frisby knew he was in a friendly spot last Friday when he saw a ship in the seal of the North Channel Area Chamber of Commerce. The director of technical and business analytics for the Port of Houston spoke to the membership last Friday reporting the critical progress of the nearby Port.
“The Port remains a huge economic engine for the area supporting and sustaining a lot of businesses throughout the region including all parts of the North Channel area,” he told membership.
Frisby said the Port had recently conducted an economic impact study assessing the benefits that the Port brings to the region.
“We’re connected with over 1.5 million jobs in the state of Texas and 3.4 million throughout the entire country,” he quoted the astounding numbers.
“That’s including people on the waterfront, all the other jobs those people are supporting, as well as all the people whose jobs depend on the products that are imported and exported through our facilities,” he added.
According to the same study, the economic impact in dollars is in excess of $400 billion for Texas and over $900 billion nationwide.
Frisby reminded chamber members that the greater Houston area had been dependent upon waterborne transportation from the very beginning when the Allen brothers came up Buffalo Bayou to found the city of Houston.
“They might have come in a canoe or something similar. There was no ship channel, only Buffalo Bayou and the San Jacinto River and the average depth was reportedly a mere 10 feet deep,” he said, prohibitive of any ocean-going or seabound vessels.
In the early years, he explained, the original Port of Houston was at the foot of Main Street in downtown Houston.
“There the cargo would be loaded and unloaded onto barges to go to Galveston and New Orleans for transit overseas,” he said.
The shipping business increased rapidly, but Houston needed a deep-water channel and Congressman Tom Ball following his election went to work on the project. Ball was able to convince the federal government and the region to share in the cost of digging the 52-mile channel.
“In 1911, a campaign was launched to persuade Harris County voters to approve $1.25 million in bonds to pay for the local share to dredge the waterway,” the Port of Houston website said.
The Port of Houston was ceremonially opened on November 10, 1914, and has seen exponential growth since.
Frisby confessed to being an overachiever and liked the same for the Port.
“We are No. 1 in several categories including being the No. 1 U.S. port, higher than LA and New York, in terms of the volume of cargo that we handle. We’re also extremely strong in the different petrochemical and oil and gas trades,” he said. They also lead the nation in the export of propane, ethane, butane, plastics, and commodity grade plastics.
“We’re the number one exporter of petroleum, petroleum products, and we’re the number one container port on the US Gulf Coast. And we have the busiest deep-draft federal navigation channel out of any port complex in the nation,” he said.
The Port also boasts the number one port for steel in the U.S. and have more than 8,000 deep-draft vessels that have arrived into the port complex in the last year.
“That’s complemented by an estimated 200,000 barge transits per year,” he said. Frisby noted that the heart of the energy complexes included some six refineries surrounded by dozens and dozens of chemical plants, third-party tanking, and many other related industries that feed off each other.
“They are all connected with one of the densest pipeline networks in the nation. A pipeline map of the ship channel region looks like a plate of spaghetti going everywhere and all amounts to approximately 500 million barrels of liquid storage,” he explained.
He estimated 70 percent of the total volume handled on the channel was liquid petroleum-based cargo.
The dry bulk business is primarily grains, steel, cement, and steel. Frisby said the chief trade host is Latin America.
“We’re the closest region to them and they also have a deficit in chemicals and refined products,” he said.
Who receives all of those exports?
“If it’s on the globe, you can put a pin in it for a Houston connection,” he said.
In other chamber business, the leadership recognized businesses who had been members for five, 10, and 15 years and awarded them a framed certificate. Those celebrating five years included Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia, South Trust Bank, Navarro Insurance, Mike’s Gates, Laquinta Houston East, HCA Houston Emergency Room, Harris County Transit, Anderson Center For The Arts, and Affordable Dentures and Implants.
Businesses celebrating 10 years included Southwest Galvanizing, Bryant’s Termite and Pest Control, JSD Global, LLC, Harris County ESD #6, and Youth-Reach Houston.
Businesses celebrating 15 years included Candlewood Suites Houston-I-10 East, Karla G-Kidd, Greens Bayou Coalition, Everitt Industrial Supply, and Bill Palko.
Businesses celebrating five years of membership included Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia, South Trust Bank, Navarro Insurance, Mike’s Gates, Laquinta Houston East, HCA Houston Emergency Room, Harris County Transit, Anderson Center For The Arts, and Affordable Dentures and Implants.
Businesses celebrating 10 years included Southwest Galvanizing, Bryant’s Termite and Pest Control, JSD Global, LLC, Harris County ESD #6, and Youth-Reach Houston.
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