Nearly 36 million tonnes of goods handled in the Port of Gdansk in 2015

The Port of Gdansk Photo: Kacper/Port of Gdansk Authority SA — The Port of Gdansk, Photo: Kacper/Port of Gdansk Authority SA

In 2015, on the quays of the Gdansk port nearly 36 million tonnes of goods (35.91 million tonnes) were handled, including a record volume – nearly 15 million tonnes – of liquid fuels.

Closing the year with an almost 20% increase in fuel turnover at the Port of Gdansk is a record for the entire history of the port. So far the best result in this respect had been the 14.4 million tonnes, recorded in 2010. Since then the transshipment of fuel at the Port of Gdansk fluctuated in the range of 10-12 million tonnes per year.

The past year was in the Port of Gdansk was also marked by impressive results in the handling of general cargo, despite the fact that the general cargo market, particularly the container segment, was not among the most successful worldwide. Having summarised the whole of 2015, the Port of Gdansk noted 11.8 million tonnes of general cargo, i.e. 5.2% more than in the record year 2014. At the same time it is worth noting that this is the first time in the Polish maritime economy when the Port of Gdansk slipped into the lead in terms of handling general cargo among the Polish ports, and this is mainly due to the transshipment of containerised cargo.

As shown in 2015, the Port of Gdansk successfully held its position in the face of the container crisis, while maintaining a high second place on the Baltic Sea, despite a 10 % decline in the number (TEUs) of containers handled. This decrease was offset, however, effectively by the high tonnage of containerised cargo, which exceeded the level of 2014 by more than 3%.

A 35% growth in the transshipment of coal was noted, which in 2015 amounted to 4.5 million tonnes. Most consisted of coal exports, whose share in the total coal transshipment at Gdansk rose year on year by 8%.

A slightly drop in cargo handling in comparison to 2014 was recorded during the past year only in the group of other bulk cargo (-4.6%) and cereals (-10.7%), with the difference that in 2014 on the quays of the Port of Gdansk cereal transshipment was relatively balanced in terms of export and import, whereas 2015 witnessed a distinct dominance of exports, of which 41% consisted of Polish wheat.

It is worth mentioning that despite the decrease in the number of overloaded cereals, the results achieved in this group in 2015 was the third best in the history of the Port of Gdansk.

Particularly noteworthy is the fact that during 2015 there was a 16% increase in the size of commercial vessels, which over the past decade means a doubling in the size of the vessels serviced at the port.