Texas ports build for NAFTA

Ports in Southwest Texas are beginning to reap the rewards of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and are building new cargo handling facilities. The Port of Brownsville, close to the Mexican border, brought a new 650ft concrete dock on line last June specifically to handle steel products.

Dedicated heavy corridor
The dock has a load capacity of 2500 lbs/ft 2 , making it one of the strongest in the western Gulf. Trucks moving steel products between the port and Mexico must have to obtain special “overweight” clearances and the port wants to connect its new berth directly with the Mexican border by building a dedicated road and bridge that would allow trucks weighing up to 53 short tons gross to transit.

Money is already in place for the project, says port director Raul Besteiro, but the Mexicans still have to give the “go ahead” on their side of the new Rio Grande bridge. However, Mexican steel interests are lobbying strongly for the corridor as ship scrap, produced in Brownsville by firms such as Transforma Marine, International Shipbreaking Limited and Esco Marine, could be moved more cheaply to steel mills in Monterrey....