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Rotterdam trade up, despite Russia embargo

[ July 22, 2022   //   ]

The Port of Rotterdam said on 22 July that its total cargo throughput was 0.8% higher in the first half of the year (233.5 million tonnes) than in the same period in 2021 (231.6 million tonnes), despite the war in Ukraine.

Container transport to and from Russia has come to a halt, and persistent bottlenecks in global container logistics caused cargo to shift from large to smaller container ports.

But imports of LNG and coal rose very sharply as an alternative to reduced European imports of Russian gas by pipeline. The throughput of crude oil increased, with oil products falling off. Throughput of iron ore, agricultural bulk and containers was lower than in the same period last year.

Large vessels are now often cancelling calls with 5.5% fewer calls in Rotterdam compared with last year) but they are loading and unloading more containers per call (up 6.1%). This results in peaks in activity at the terminals, which were already very busy since containers are left there for longer times on average because ship arrival times are more unreliable.

Shipping companies are currently using smaller ports for transhipment relatively often, said the port.

Ro ro traffic rose by 16.8%. With brexit due, there was a surge in late 2020 followed a dip in early 2021.

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