Fog Halts 92 Ships at Houston, Sabine Ship Channels in Texas
About 92 vessels are waiting to pass through the Houston and Sabine ship channels in Texas after fog hampered visibility, according to the U.S. Coast Guard and a pilots group.
The Houston Channel Pilots Association doesn’t expect to move wide-bodied ships such as Aframax and Suezmax vessels today if the fog clears, said Steve Miner, a dispatcher for the group. The pilots will begin boarding and moving smaller ships through the waterway if conditions clear today, he said.
There are about 10 Aframax- and Suezmax-size tanker vessels waiting to enter the channel, destined for ports operated by Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Miner said.
About 60 vessels are waiting to enter the Houston Ship Channel and 10 are waiting to leave the waterway, which leads to the largest U.S. petroleum port, Phillip Woods, a Coast Guard watch supervisor, said in an interview earlier today. Operations were suspended Dec. 13, and some vessels departed yesterday during a break in the weather, he said.
There are 13 vessels waiting to enter the Sabine Ship Channel, Derek Rutherford, a dispatcher with the pilots association that guides the ships through that waterway, said in a telephone interview. Nine are waiting to leave, he said.
Ships move from the Gulf of Mexico through the Sabine channel to supply oil to refineries owned by Valero Energy Corp. (VLO), Total SA and Motiva Enterprises LLC in Port Arthur and by Exxon Mobil Corp. in Beaumont.
To contact the reporters on this story: Jim Polson in New York at jpolson@bloomberg.net; Aaron Clark in New York at aclark27@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dan Stets at dstets@bloomberg.net
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