Port of Amsterdam looks back at excellent 2008

The Amsterdam Port Area continued its strong performance in 2008. The cargo throughput rose by 4% from 87.4 million metric tons in 2007 to 90.9 million metric tons in 2008.

 

These are preliminary figures made public by a visibly contented Hans Gerson – CEO of the Port of Amsterdam – in January, 2009 at the New Year’s Reception of the port authority itself and the Amsterdam Employers’ Association (ORAM). “The very strong performance achieved in the first ten months could not be maintained in the last two months. But over the whole year, we fared remarkably well in comparison to other ports in the Hamburg-Le Havre range. This also means that the growth in sea transport going through the sea lock in IJmuiden are far exceeding the most recent predictions from the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis. Even if we factor in the expected reduced growth in 2009, this makes clear that the decision about the construction of a second sea lock needs to be taken as a matter of great urgency.”

Amsterdam

Coal

The preliminary figures show that the transshipment of coal dropped by 4.2% from 17.3 million tons in 2007 to 16.5 million tons. The decrease stemmed in part from the large supplies held by the coal terminals.

Oil products

According to provisional numbers, the transshipment of oil products grew by 15.3% from 24.9 million tons to 28.7 million tons. This can be put down to a number of a factors, including increased exports to the United States and expanded storage capacity at various oil companies in the Port of Amsterdam. For example, Oiltanking boosted its capacity from 900,000 cubic meters in 2001 to 1.6 million cubic meters now. By the same token, in September 2008, NuStar began operating a completely modernized terminal, thereby increasing its capacity from 170,000 to 650,000 cubic meters.

Containers

The transshipment of containers jumped by 10.2% from 385,603 TEU to 424,880 TEU. Expressed in weight, the volume of containers handled by the port rose by 11% from 3.4 million tons to 3.8 million tons.

Sea and river cruise ships

The number of sea cruise passengers skyrocketed by 53.7% from 147,000 to 226,000. Likewise, the number of sea cruise ships grew by 50% from 78 to 117.

The number of river cruise passengers leveled out, remaining at 170,000. With river cruise ships getting bigger and more luxurious, the number of these river vessels calling at Amsterdam dropped by 2.6% from 1,019 to 998.

Sea cargo ships

The number of cargo-carrying sea ships visiting the Port of Amsterdam went up by 9.5% from 5,310 in 2008 to 5,813 in 2008. Amsterdam is not only welcoming a growing number of ships, the vessels themselves are also becoming bigger and wider. That further underlines the need to construct a larger sea lock in IJmuiden in the near future.

Expectations for the future

Growth in 2009 is expected to be clearly smaller. It is not yet clear to what extent and for how long the recession will affect the various sectors in the port. Thanks to recent investment in terminal capacity in the energy sector in particular and the wide range of goods moving through the port, the Port of Amsterdam will probably weather the economic storm fairly well.

Source: Port of Amsterdam Asia Pacific Region