{"id":39378,"date":"2025-11-07T08:43:21","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T08:43:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/39378\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T08:43:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T08:43:21","slug":"maritime-industry-must-adapt-as-trade-markets-shift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/39378\/","title":{"rendered":"Maritime industry must adapt as trade markets shift"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Port Houston CEO Charlie Jenkins opened the 4th annual Houston International Maritime Conference<\/a> (HIMC25) on Monday by calling on the maritime industry to take a more proactive stance as global trade patterns shift under tariff pressures, nearshoring trends, and new energy market dynamics.<\/p>\n

The four-day event, held Sunday through Wednesday in downtown Houston, brought together almost 900 executives, ocean carriers, petrochemical producers, economists and trade stakeholders.<\/p>\n

Sessions focused on expected changes in North American supply chains, container and tanker markets, and the role of Texas infrastructure in supporting freight growth across the Gulf Coast and U.S.\u2013Mexico trade corridors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis conference is about supporting our industry, our region\u2019s prosperity, bringing everybody together for thought, leadership, and insightful dialogue on the current and future outlook for Houston\u2019s maritime industries,\u201d Jenkins said during the event\u2019s opening keynote address.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey say everything is bigger in Texas and that gets worn out, but our port is so big, the gap is bigger than 97% of U.S. ports. That\u2019s just a phenomenal fact about our success as a team. We\u2019ve done a lot recently to help ensure the channel is safe, efficient, and competitive going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

During a session called \u201cGlobal Currents: Navigating the Shifting Tides of Industry and Economy,\u201d Paul Bingham outlined how tariffs and industrial policy are prompting companies to re-evaluate sourcing networks.<\/p>\n

Bingham, director of trade and supply chain analysis at S&P Global, projected that global trade will not return to a pre-pandemic pattern, but will instead shift into more regionalized trading blocs \u2014 particularly around Southeast Asia and North America.<\/p>\n

\u201cSupply chains will be still undergoing revision and redesign in response to tariffs and we expect that that means supply chain changes are going to continue which affects modes, it affects commodities, it affects individual companies and in the aggregate it\u2019s going to affect the U.S. economy trying to readjust to the new trade landscape,\u201d Bingham said.<\/p>\n

He noted that U.S. companies will likely deepen production integration with Mexico and Canada, depending on the upcoming USMCA review cycle.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf nearshoring accelerates, we could see more cross-border freight with Mexico directly and changes in how Gulf Coast ports like Houston serve supply chains,\u201d Bingham said.<\/p>\n

Jesse Thompson, senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said that Houston\u2019s economy remains resilient but faces weakness in the oil and gas supply chain, which has slowed local job growth.<\/p>\n

During a session titled \u201cHouston\u2019s Momentum: Economic Growth and the Road Ahead,\u201d he noted that crude production is expected to remain flat into 2026, limiting upstream hiring even as LNG export capacity continues to expand.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Permian Basin has been the driver of our growth in crude oil production. When we look at our crude oil outlook, we\u2019re really looking at flat production from here to the end of next year. I have some modest declines actually built in, exit to exit this year and next year, but that\u2019s well within the margin of error,\u201d Thompson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking at a flattish production outlook for crude oil. But everything that\u2019s coming up out of the ground \u2026 a huge portion of it for the last five years now at least, has had to go on a boat, because there\u2019s no consumer for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A panel featuring Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) Senior Director Carolyn Mays highlighted how freight growth is straining the state\u2019s highway system, even with record infrastructure investment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re known as the freight state, we\u2019re known as the trade state for manufacturing, energy production, agriculture \u2026 we also produce a lot of lumber, we\u2019re a very diverse state and trade really matters, and really for us at TxDOT, our No. 1 role is how do we facilitate economic development, economic competitiveness, how do we work with all of the different sectors to ensure that in order to make money, you have to move the stuff, whether you\u2019re moving from the port to a warehouse, from a warehouse to dropping it at my doorstep or your doorstep, through Amazon, all of that moves through some transportation system, and the spine of that transportation system is really highways,\u201d Mays said.<\/p>\n

Mays noted that Texas will invest roughly $145 billion in transportation over the next decade, with major allocations supporting port access roads, border corridors, and truck-heavy distribution lanes. Yet, freight demand \u2014 particularly from Houston\u2019s expanding port and industrial footprint \u2014 continues to outpace capacity.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, we\u2019re pouring a lot of money into infrastructure, but because we\u2019re growing so fast in population, we\u2019re growing so fast on the trade side, we definitely have some pinch points,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The post Port Houston CEO: Maritime industry must adapt as trade markets shift<\/a> appeared first on FreightWaves<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Port Houston CEO Charlie Jenkins opened the 4th annual Houston International Maritime Conference (HIMC25) on Monday by calling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[24291,4904,24290,56,58,57,8395,24294,24295,24289,10986,24293,24292],"class_list":["post-39378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-charlie-jenkins","tag-downtown-houston","tag-global-trade","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-houston-ship-channel","tag-jesse-thompson","tag-maritime-industry","tag-paul-bingham","tag-port-houston","tag-supply-chains","tag-trade-corridors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}