Q1 throughput of Port of Hamburg up 4.6%, to 28,6m tons

Trade flows through the Port of Hamburg (Germany) in the first quarter rose by 4.6% from Q1, 2009, to 28.6 million tons. This March freight volume via the port exceeded, the November 2008’s level, and reached 10.5 million tons (+10.7%) PortNews IAA reports citing the St. Petersburg’s office of the company.
 
The first-quarter volume of inbound freight increased by 0.6% to 16.7 million tons, outbound cargo volume reached 11.9 million tons, a 2.7% rise from the last year’s number. General cargo showed a 1.1% gain, to 18.6 million tons. Bulked cargo rose by 11.9%, to 9.9 million tons, the Port statistics said.

Container trade at Port of Hamburg in Q1 showed a downturn trend: in Jan-Mar the port’s terminal handled 1.7 million TEUs, 0.4-percent drop from the last year’s results. However, there was a slight 1.6-percent gain in the laden containers volume. In March, container throughput reached 642,000 TEUs, a 10.9% increase. First-quarter containerized freight volume transported via the port’s railroad into the continent rose to 448,238 TEUs, 16% up from Q1, 2009.

Hamburg expects a revival of container traffic volume since a number of Asia line services have been resumed. First-quarter container turnover on Asian services amounted to 1.1 million TEUs, which is still 2.1% below the last year's number, on the American services there were 182,TEUs handled (+ 9,2%); on the African – 47,000 TEUs (+7,4%). Container traffic between Hamburg and the major European ports amounted to 470,000 TEUs (12.9%).

Claudia Roller, Chairman of the Board of Port of Hamburg Marketing, commenting on the quarterly container performance, explained that the results of the first three months did not reflect the impact of the newly opened Asian line service, expected to show positive growth results in semiannual report.

"The first three months volume of freight turnover with a 4.6-percent growth rate gives a positive signal for the Hamburg's port industry. We can conclude that the universal port of Hamburg was able to increase the overall figures of cargo turnover thanks to an increase in transshipment of grab bulk cargo. The volume of iron ore totaled 4.7 million tons, a 49.7-percent rise. Volume of other bulked cargoes fell by 4.8%, to 1.6 million tons. The liquid cargoes totaled 3.6 million tons, a 10.8% drop," Claudia Roller said.

Port of Hamburg is located at the mouth of the River Elbe, 100 km off seashore. However, the port facilities allow handling 250.000 DWT bulk cargo carriers. Total throughput of the port of Hamburg in 2009 dropped by 21.4 percent, to 110.4 million tons, container trade fell by 28%, to 7.01 million TEUs.

Source: Port News