The Performance of Seaport Clusters - RePub - Erasmus Universiteit ...

Chapter 12 – Analyzing Strenghts and Weaknesses of Seaport Clusters 187
compared to Houston. Third, the diversity of the cluster is limited, and fourth, the presence
of intermediaries is limited. Fifth, the LMPC is a ‘low trust cluster’ compared to Houston. The
only strength of the LMPC compared to Houston is the low level of congestion.
These strengths and weaknesses indicate that the LMPC is a weak cluster. Agglomeration
economies are absent; the main strength of the cluster is absence of congestion. These are
not ‘advanced strengths’. The following performance indicators are available to compare the
LMPC with other Gulf ports (see Table 83, Table 84, and Table 85).
Table 83: Market shares of the LMPC and three other gulf ports in the total US port throughput.
Market shares 1990 1997 2000 2001
LMPC 18.0% 18.1% 17.6% 17.2%
Houston 5.8% 7.1% 7.8% 7.6%
Mobile 1.9% 2.1% 2.2% 2.0%
Tampa 2.4% 2.4% 2.2% 1.9%
Table 84: Performance of the LMPC as container port
Year 1980 1985 1990 1995 1998 2001
New Orleans 279,500 380,000 157,000 198,000 245,000 247,000
Houston 300,000 363,000 502,000 705,000 968,000 1072,000
US Gulf 580,000 812,000 822,000 1188,000 1479,000 1652,000
Total USA 7,658,000 11,480,000 15,266,000 22,339,000 26,175,000 30,471,000
Market share
LMPC in Gulf
Market share
LMPC in USA
48.2% 46.8% 19.1% 16.7% 16.6% 15.0%
Source: US Army Corps of Engineers (2003)
3.6% 3.3% 1.0% 0.9% 0.9% 0.8%