Port Houston’s Project 11 will reduce congestion, enable growth.
It’s called Texas Chicken. It’s a maritime maneuver unique to the manmade Houston Ship Channel, the country’s busiest waterway, which runs 52 miles from the narrow “Turning Basin” some four miles east of downtown Houston to the Gulf of Mexico near Galveston Bay. The channel’s average width of just over 500 feet, with numerous sections far narrower than that, serves to challenge the skills of even the most experienced pilots when oncoming traffic nears.
“When there’s an incoming vessel and an outgoing vessel, they’re coming in pretty close proximity,” says John Moseley, Port Houston’s chief commercial officer. “It’s a matter of a few hundred feet.”
Texas Chicken requires steering straight toward an oncoming ship, then veering toward the bank at the last possible moment to leverage complex stabilizing effects created by the vessels’ interactions with each other and the shore; merely hugging the bank can cause vessels to waggle dangerously. Texas Chicken is a thing to behold, especially when you’re talking about massive tankers and container vessels.
“In the world of ship pilots,” says Moseley, “it is a very precise maneuver that requires a very delicate touch and a lot of experience. And it’s sort of what led to Project 11.”
“Our activities here contribute more than a trillion dollars to the U.S. economy.”
— John Moseley, Chief Commercial Officer, Port Houston
Ports along the Gulf Coast — from Tampa Bay to Mobile, Gulfport to New Orleans to Freeport, Texas — have launched multi-year expansions and improvements to accommodate increasing traffic and ever larger vessels. But none matches the scope and ambition of Port Houston’s $1 billion Project 11, which will confine Texas Chicken to the annals of maritime lore. More impactfully, it will produce economic and environmental benefits that could last generations.
Great Ambitions
Collectively known as Port Houston, the ship channel complex and its more than 200 private and eight public terminals comprise the nation’s largest port for waterborne tonnage, having cemented its position in 2024 by handling a record 53.07 million tons of cargo. A 2022 study reported that business activity at Port Houston generates more than $439 billion in statewide economic value and $906 million in economic value nationwide. Business activity at the port supports some 3.37 million jobs.
Widening the channel from 530 feet to 700 feet will allow for two-way traffic of ever larger vessels, thus reducing delays and congestion. It is expected to accommodate an additional 1,400 vessels per year, representing 91 million tons of cargo and generating approximately $200 billion in economic impact annually.
With dredging having begun in earnest in 2022 and expected to finish this year or next, Project 11 is projected to create over 252,000 new jobs in Texas alone while supporting over 3 million jobs nationwide through its broader economic impact, according to Port Houston.
Not merely an infrastructure upgrade, Project 11 is a major environmental initiative. By widening and deepening the channel, the project will cut fuel consumption and enhance air quality by reducing wait times to enter the channel by up to two hours per transit. An estimated 26 million cubic yards of dredged material will be put to good use, repurposed for shoreline protection and new wildlife habitats.
“We’re creating 10 acres of bird islands, 276 acres of intertidal marshland and 324 acres of oyster reefs,” Moseley says. “Nothing of that scale has ever been done.”
