Port of Antwerp ready to make another record throughput

Container traffic grew by 7.1%, while in terms of TEUs, throughput increased by 6.8%.

Throughput for the largest shipping area, Europe, registered the strongest growth: 12.4%. Throughput for North America grew by 8.2% and for Asia by 2.2%. Imports from China are more or less the same, while exports are 6.7% less.

In addition, the breakbulk throughput is recovering and has recorded a slightly positive figure.

The total Ro-Ro grew by 5.6%, with the number of passenger vehicles shipped after nine months being more by 4.1%.

The conventional breakbulk cargo still reported a loss of 6.5%, but the loss on an annual basis was limited to 2.7%. The reason for this is a recovery in iron and steel imports.

Iron and steel exports were up by 4.9% after 9 months, with iron and steel exports to the US up by 8%. The total throughput of iron and steel increased by 1.9%.

As for liquid bulk it increased 5.7%. Imports grew by 9.1% and exports by 0.5% which is a considerable recovery after a reduction of 12.2% in the first quarter.

The throughput of crude oil was less by 7.1%, while that of petroleum derivatives (+6%) and chemicals (+10.1%) spurred the liquid bulk.

The throughput of dry bulk was more by 1%, due to the bigger transhipment of fertilizers (+11.2%), sand and gravel (+23.9%) and coal (+3,3%), because the other traffic are currently posting a drop.

Finally, 10,901 seagoing vessels (+1.9%) called at the Port of Antwerp in the last 9 months. The gross tonnage of vessels that called at Antwerp increased by 2.3%.