The US Coast Guard reopened portions of the Houston Ship Channel on Monday, with restrictions on waterways affected by the petrochemical leak outside Houston that has disrupted ship traffic.
In a new announcement, USCG said it is allowing daytime transits only through the ship channel, which connects the port of Houston to the Gulf of Mexico and is home to nine refineries.
A chemical leak made the busiest US oil port to shut after a chemical leak into the water, which led Royal Dutch Shell Plc and LyondellBasell Industries to cut production on Monday, Reuters reported.
On the aftermath of the incident, the environmental contractor for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has been working to contain the site using booms, and it is pumping waste to storage containers to mitigate the release.
Vessels currently in the contaminated area are not authorized to depart until decontamination is complete, the Coast Guard said in a statement.
It also required vessels to keep a 40-minute distance between each other.
