A blanket of fog on the Houston Ship Channel drove pilots to suspend all boardings Thursday afternoon. A dispatcher said pilots suspended boarding all vessels at 2:09 pm CST (2009 GMT). The dispatcher said forecasters expected the fog to remain until 6 pm CST Friday at the earliest. At 3 pm CST, there were 26 ships cued for inbound movement and six for outbound movement. The suspension of ship movements in the Houston Ship Channel affects the delivery and loading schedules of crude oil, petroleum and petrochemical products. The 52-mile ship channel provides access from the Gulf of Mexico through Galveston Bay to various ports in Houston and other cities in the area that have many industrial facilities, including refineries, petrochemical plants and steel and metal facilities. –Alan Tomczak, [email protected] –Edited by Jason Lindquist, [email protected]