Maersk Line and Sealand will continue service through common user facilities at the Port of Houston.
APM Terminals will close its terminal in Houston, but sister company Maersk Line said its commitment to serving shippers through the port remains unchanged.
Tom Boyd, a spokesman for APM Terminals, said operations at its facility will wind down later this summer. The APM Terminal is located within the Port of Houston’s Barbours Cut terminal.
Services operated by fellow APM companies — namely Maersk, SeaLand, and Safmarine — will continue to call Houston and use common user facilities, either Barbours Cut or Bayport, which Boyd notes have deeper draft berths and newer cranes.
APM Terminals will continue to serve shippers moving cargo through the U.S. Gulf at the Port of Mobile, where it recently announced plans to invest $40 million to add two new super-post panamax cranes and expand the container yard by 20 acres.
APM Terminals said it will seek to move its 26 employees in Houston to other terminals within its network.
APM Terminals Houston handled about 379,000 TEUs in 2014, 19 percent of the Port of Houston’s total 1,951,088-TEU throughput for the year.
Commenting on the closure, Maersk Line spokesman Timothy Simpson emphasized that all Maersk services will continue to call the Port of Houston, and that there will be no disruption to shippers.
The Port of Houston has had a landlord-tenant relationship with APM Terminals, Maersk or its predecessor Sea-Land for many years. Its current 30-year lease commenced in May 1997, two years before Maersk acquired Sea-Land Corp.
Houston’s involvement with Sea-Land actually extends all to the way to the birth of the container shipping indusry. In the spring of 1956, the Malcom McLean’s Ideal-X, a converted T-2 tanker, was loaded and sailed from the Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal, New Jersey, for the Port of Houston with 58 truck trailers.
APM Terminals to close Houston facility
