Port of Tallin officially issued its annual cargo for 2019, marking 5.6 million tonnes and 2.3 million passengers who passed via its harbors, in the fourth quarter (Q4). As the Tallin’s chairman highlighted, the IMO 2020 sulphur cap enhanced the port’s liquid bulk volumes in the fourth quarter of 2019.
It is positive, that the Q4 strong growth in liquid bulk, which was caused by increased demand for storage and blending of dark petroleum products due to IMO requirements for marine fuels effective from the beginning of 2020, helped to significantly reduce the drop in annual cargo volume compared to 9 months result.
…said Valdo Kalm, Chairman of the Management Board of the Port of Tallinn.
Moreover, Port of Tallin continued that its liquid cargo business remains volatile while the first quarter’s increase should not be interpreted as a continuing trend.
The port’s annual cargo volume totalled 19.9 million tonnes, noting a slight decrease of 3.3% compared to the previous year, basically due to decrease of the liquid bulk volume in Q3, which, on the other hand, was balanced by growth in dry bulk.
Furthermore, the number of passengers, grow by 0.2% year-on-year, marking a record of 10.64 million passengers. This increase was resulted from passenger traffic between Estonia and Finland on the Tallinn-Helsinki and Muuga-Vuosaari routes,while it was further boosted due to another yearly record of 660 thousand cruise passengers.
For the number of passengers, we reached a record for the 12th consecutive year, thanks to recovery of passenger traffic between Estonia and Finland, which was also strongly supported by the addition of servicing passengers with vehicles and the addition of a new ship on the Muuga-Vuosaari route. In the cruise business, we have once again achieved a record and Tallinn remains one of the most attractive cruise destinations in Europe.
… Valdo Kalm concluded.
