Bremerhaven/Bremen’s cargo volumes continued their decline in the first four months of this year.
The twin port’s throughput across all commodities slipped by 5% year on year to 24.6 million tonnes, according to Bremen state government data.
Bremerhaven/Bremen is Europe’s largest vehicle hub and its fourth-largest container port.
Finished vehicles loaded or discharged in Bremerhaven totalled 695,000 in January to April, down almost 6% from the same period last year. Container handling dropped 3.2% to 1.84 million TEU.
Operations at the port have recently been disrupted by the collapse of a gantry crane onto a very large Maersk vessel.
But smaller upriver terminals in the city of Bremen posted higher volumes, driven by increases in various wet bulk, dry cargo, and breakbulk commodities.
Wet volumes including petroleum products grew by 12% and iron ore imports for a local Arcelor Mittal steel plant gained 5.5%. Forest products and steel cargoes were also up by two-digit percentages.
This post was sourced from IHS Maritime 360: View the original article here.
