America’s waterborne foreign trade declined in 2015, down 1.7 percent to 1.27 billion metric tons from 1.29 billion tons in 2014, according to data collected and reported by the U.S. Census Bureau. The value of trade also dropped, by 10.8 percent to $1.56 trillion, with exports down by 15.0 percent and imports by 8.6 percent from their 2014 levels.

The first regular direct container/ro-ro service between the Houston and West Africa was launched February 12 by Grimaldi Lines at the Port of Houston Authority’s Barbours Cut Container Terminal.

The Halifax Port Authority is offering importers and exporters an enhanced web-tracking tool for moving containers through the terminals operated by Ceres-Halifax Inc. and Halterm Container Terminal Ltd. The Port of Oakland has finalized a "continuity plan" to move containerized cargo once a marine terminal closes March 31. Marine terminal operator King Ocean Services Limited (Cayman Islands) Inc. has renewed a 20-year lease agreement with Port Everglades. The new agreement calls for a minimum 72,000 container lifts annually over the initial 10-year term with two five-year renewal options.

Rhode Island’s Port of Davisville imported autos in record numbers in 2015 for the sixth year in a row, a total of 227,021 compared to 178,215 in 2014. The Ports of Indiana handled more than 12.2 million tons of cargo in 2015, surpassing 2014's record volume by nearly 18 percent, or 1.8 million tons. The Port of Long Beach in January logged its seventh straight month of container cargo increases, a 29 percent jump from a year ago to 536,188 TEUs. The Port of Los Angeles’ this year recorded its busiest January ever for container traffic, up 33 percent from January 2015 to 704,398 TEUs. Container throughput at the Port of New York and New Jersey reached a record high in 2015 of 6,371,720 TEUs, beating the previous record, set in 2014, by 10.4 percent.

Theldon R. Branch, III was reappointed to the port commission of the Port of Houston Authority by the Houston City Council on February 10.

Edison Chouest Offshore (ECO), an offshore energy service and supply company, will be locating shipbuilding operations at the Port of Gulfport in Mississippi. The project represents a $68 million corporate investment and will create 1,000 full-time jobs.

A new study documents the FY 2013 economic and fiscal impacts of all aspects of transporting, handling, storing, and processing domestically and internationally traded goods through Virginia’s public and private marine terminals, private shipbuilding and repair, and other facets of Virginia’s commercial maritime industry.

The Port of Vancouver USA’s new rail entrance won a 2016 Engineering Excellence Grand Award from the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) Oregon.