SIMIC

The potential for the new penalty comes as shippers have also largely not responded to moving more of their imports during the port's Saturday gate hours, according to IHS Media.

Port Houston executive director Roger Guenther said in a statement that the agency is considering a fee on import boxes that linger at the port well past their allotted free time. The fee would be in addition to the regular demurrage charges the port imposes for imports that dwell past their free time at Houston's two marine terminals.

Port Houston didn't provide further details about the amount of the fee, how it would be assessed, or when a decision on its implementation would be made. Mr Guenther said the fee was necessary to increase throughput at Houston's terminals, which have been affected by ongoing diversions of freight from US West Coast ports.

"Marine terminals have become the cheapest storage solution, and this cannot be encouraged any longer," Mr Guenther said in the statement. "Container terminals must maintain high throughput velocity in order to provide competitive service levels for the vessel, yard, and gate operations.

"We can no longer be the least expensive option for storage of containers on terminal, for now and in the future," he added.

The last six months has seen yard utilization at Houston's Bayport terminal, where its Asian services primarily call, grow from 50 per cent at the end of March to a high of 87 per cent as of mid-August, according to Port Houston terminal operating statistics. Bayport's yard usage sat at 83 per cent as of October. 3.

The high utilization comes amid strong growth in Houston's Asian business. While overall container volumes were up 17 per cent year to date through August, Asian imports into Houston are up 37 per cent through the same period, according to data from PIERS, accounting for some 182,686 TEU of additional volume at the port.

Import dwell time across the port, while decreasing, is still above the port's goals. Port Houston said that import dwell was just over five days at the start of October, down from just over six days in mid-August but higher than the port's goal of a four-day average dwell.

Improving the container flow is needed as Houston is still dealing with a high number of ships at anchor waiting for space to open at the yard to discharge imports. Port Houston said twenty-one ships were waiting at anchor to call on Bayport as of October 3, with one at the Barbours Cut terminal.

Mr Guenther highlighted the efforts the port has already undertaken to free up terminal space, including opening temporary yard capacity for long-dwelling imports and accelerating capital spending on more acreage at the Bayport terminal, which he said at a recent port board meeting was "sorely needed."

Along with those moves, Port Houston since June has opened its marine terminals on Saturdays for shippers to pull out import loads. But those Saturday gate hours haven't gotten the desired response.