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Home furnishings retail giant IKEA cited two primary reasons for selecting Baytown for a new distribution center: the fact that Houston is one of the largest cities in the United States and proximity to the Port of Houston.

The new IKEA facility, which employs 200 people or “co-workers,” just opened in April of this year and began distributing products to stores. Products are distributed to the company’s stores in Houston, Round Rock, Dallas, Memphis and Merriam, Kansas.

Plans call for the Baytown facility to also serve as a customer distribution center, fulfilling online orders for people in New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana, an area covering about 600,000 miles. That business is slated to happen sometime in 2018.

Although the newest distribution center to serve its stores has been opened for only a few months, IKEA executives are pleased with how the company’s goods have been moving across Port Houston’s docks so far.

“We have had great success in pulling the needed containers very quickly,” Distribution Manager Alex Todd said. “I have worked with other ports in the past and it appears as though we are off to a great start!”

That appears to bode well for the expansion plans IKEA has for additional stores that will be served by Baytown center. The planned expansions include a store opening in Grand Prairie this year and stores in Fort Worth and San Antonio in 2019.

The big Scandinavian retail chain measures its store distribution business by cubic meters and is forecasting it will handle 649,000 cubic meters, or more than 2.1 million square feet, at the Bayport center in 2018. For its customer distribution business, the company projects it will handle 25,000 to 30,000 “order lines” per week after it begins operating next year.

“And we are anticipating growth,” Todd added. “I have found the city to offer a lot of diversity, talent at all levels and a general can-do attitude when faced with challenges.”

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The Port Commission has authorized execution of an agreement with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for the enhancement, management, operations, maintenance and repair of the Houston-Galveston Physical Oceanographic Real-Time System, commonly known as PORTS. The agreement with the agency, part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, was approved during a public meeting July 25.

PORTS provides important real-time oceanographic data to pilots, ship masters, and other navigators, supporting the safety of navigation along the Houston Ship Channel. Port Houston has been an advocate of this technology since 1999.

The system presently consists of several observation stations that provide information such as barometric pressure, air and water temperature, and wind speed/direction. Four of the six stations are networked into existing national and State of Texas observation systems.

“PORTS has proven to be very beneficial for the safe navigation of ships and barges throughout the Houston Ship Channel, and is relied on by many pilots and ship masters,” said Marcus Woodring, Chief HSSE Officer for Port Houston, who is a former U.S. Coast Guard Captain of the Port. “We feel that it contributes significantly to the overall safety of channel.”

NOAA estimates an annual economic benefit of each PORTS system at between $2.2 million and $4.5 million. Port Houston is the local sponsor of the Houston Ship Channel, facilitating commerce and maintaining navigation along the waterway.

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Three new Super Post-Panamax cranes are on the way to Port Houston’s Barbours Cut Container Terminal from Shanghai, China. They were secured on the M/V ZHEN HUA 13 July 23. Once these 405-foot-tall cranes reach their destination after a journey of more than two months, they are slated to replace three older ones at Barbours Cut.

The cranes, incidentally, will travel with booms fully raised.

The cranes are included in the $700 million modernization program under way at Barbours Cut to increase cargo-handling efficiency and capacity. In addition to the new cranes, other infrastructure improvements are expected to increase terminal capacity from 1.2 million to 2 million TEUs. A total of 14 ship-to-shore wharf cranes and 44 rubber-tired gantry cranes (RTGs) are currently operating at the terminal.

Port Houston Executive Director Roger Guenther remarked that “considerable improvements are being made by Port Houston as we strategically prepare for expected growth.” It is anticipated that the U.S. Gulf region will see steady growth in coming years due to increased production and export of plastic resins, which should follow several plant expansions along the Houston Ship Channel coming on line.

The cranes were approved by the Port Commission in 2015, and they are expected to be delivered to Barbours Cut on or about Oct. 7. The journey to deliver the cranes to Port Houston can be followed at this link: https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-12.0/centery:25.0/zoom:4.

The Barbours Cut Container Terminal celebrates its 40^th anniversary this year.

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