The world’s second-largest petrochemical port in Houston may command 75% of all US polyethylene exports, but expected growth in international shipments as a slew of new ethane crackers and associated derivative units start coming online this year has US ports a thousand miles or more away gearing up to nab a piece of the action.

Last month Georgia’s Port of Savannah increased its ship-to-shore crane total to 26 — one more than the 25 at the Port of Houston’s Bayport and Barbour’s Cut terminals — with the arrival of four new post-Panamax cranes that cost about $15 million each. Resin packagers and distributors, such as New Jersey-based A&R Bulk-Pak and Mobile, Alabama-based SeaPac Inc.,  are setting up operations at or near the Port of Charleston in South Carolina. The Port of New Orleans also is adding post-Panamax cranes, resin packaging capacity and taking empty containers from Memphis shipped via barge on the Mississippi River to add loading capacity for exporters.

Barge companies and container services also are working to position equipment at like-minded ports.

In 2015 Seacor AMH started moving containers on barges on the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, which connects the Tennessee River to Alabama’s Tombigbee River that empties into Mobile Bay, home to the Port of Mobile. Nearly a year ago the company started providing the same service between Baton Rouge and the Port of New Orleans, largely to ease trucking bottlenecks that complicate current polyvinyl chloride (PVC) exports and accommodate expected...