Belgium’s Port of Antwerp issued its annual figures for 2018 revealing growth in all cargo types, as well as a major wave of investments, expected to consolidate the port’s position as a global player and the largest integrated European chemical cluster. With a growth of 5.2% compared to 2017, the forecasts for a 6th consecutive year record were confirmed. The total transshipment in 2018 was 235.2 million tonnes.
Container chart
The strong growth in container traffic continued to 130.9 million tonnes (+6.4%) or 11.1 million TEU (+6.2%). All trades recorded growth, both in supply and export, with the only exception of supplies from the Middle East and Latin America, which showed a slight decrease.
Breakbulk
The total breakbulk transshipment shows a slightly positive figure with a growth of 1%. The RoRo cargo grew by 5.4% to 5.3 million tonnes. The number of shipped passenger cars increased by 4.7% to just under 1.3 million.
Whereas conventional breakbulk recorded a loss of 2.7% after 9 months compared to the same period in 2017, this was limited on an annual basis to a loss of 1.1% for a transshipment of 10.16 million tonnes. The reason for this is a strong performance in both the supply and removal of iron and steel, which grew by 3.5% and 3.4% respectively.
Bulk goods
- Liquid bulk shows strong growth figures with an increase from 3.6% to 75.8 million tonnes. The supply increases by 4.2%. The discharge grows by 2.2% which is a considerable catch-up movement compared to an increase of 0.5% after 9 months. Crude oil transshipment decreased by 5.3%, while the transshipment of petroleum derivatives (54.6 million tonnes and +3.1%) and chemicals (15.2 million tonnes and +9.1%) pushed up liquid bulk.
- Dry bulk transshipment grew by 7.2% to 13 million tonnes. This is mainly due to the increased transshipment of fertilisers (+12.2%), sand and gravel (+17.7%) and the more than doubling of coal transshipment. The latter is partly due to a shift to Antwerp of maritime coal traffic destined for Germany due to the extremely low water conditions on the Rhine in the summer and autumn of 2018.
Seagoing ships
In 2018, 14,595 seagoing vessels (+2.6%) called at Antwerp. The gross tonnage of these ships increased by 3% to 418,838,751 GT.
