Further growth in container throughput in Rotterdam in the first quarter

Liquid bulk

Overall, throughput of liquid bulk remained almost constant with a slight increase of 0.5% to 55.9 million tons. Less crude oil (-4.5% to 25.4 million tons) was delivered in this market segment than in the first quarter of the previous year. The difference is primarily due to the movement of goods in January 2017, which saw an exceptionally high level of throughput. However, handling of mineral oil products, which had declined structurally over the course of the previous year, developed positively again in the past quarter with an increase of 4.8%. The downward trend in incoming and outgoing heating oil deliveries came to a halt. Far more LNG was also handled in the first quarter than in the previous year (+210%; 0.7 million tons), with a record volume of over 500,000 tons being achieved in February. This growth relates to both incoming and outgoing LNG shipments and once again confirms the importance of Rotterdam as a central LNG trading hub.

Dry bulkIn dry bulk, iron ore and scrap on the one hand and coal on the other play the most important role. A significant decline was recorded in both areas: handling of iron ore and scrap fell by 9.3% to 7.1 million tons, while coal handling fell by 19.0% to 6.5 million tons. January is primarily responsible for the decline in iron ore, as throughput was particularly high in 2017. The volume in February and March 2018 was in line with the same period of the previous year. The decline in coal is due in particular to lower deliveries for power plants, as some older plants in Germany and the Netherlands were closed last year. Handling of agricultural bulk goods fell by 8.2% to 2.6 million tons due to the poor soybean harvest in Argentina. There was also a considerable decline in other dry bulk goods of 20.4% to 2.4 million tons. This is primarily the result of lower production among mineral buyers. Overall, the handling of dry bulk fell by 13.66% to 18.8 million tons.

ContainersContainer throughput rose by 4.6% to 35.9 million tons by weight and by 6.1% to 3.5 million TEU by volume. This growth, which is primarily attributable to the increasing throughput of the large container terminals in the port, continues the strong increase of the previous year. This increase is also necessary, as the shipping companies operating in the three major alliances regard Rotterdam as an important hub in their connection networks. As a result, more and more transhipment activities are being concentrated in Rotterdam. As a result, the feeder volume also continued to rise sharply, increasing by 7.5% to 0.6 million TEU. Feeder vessels transport containers with intercontinental cargo to and from other ports that are not directly served by deepsea connections. There is also an increasingly intensive exchange between deepsea services in Rotterdam, enabling shipping companies to offer their customers more combinations between loading and unloading ports in Asia and Europe. In addition, the new connections with the eastern part of the Mediterranean led to a 6.9% increase in short sea throughput to 0.7 million TEU.

RoRo and other breakbulkTotal throughput in the breakbulk market segment (ro-ro traffic and other breakbulk) fell by 4.7% to 7.2 million tons. Compared to the first quarter of the previous year, ro-ro traffic increased slightly by 0.8% to 5.8 million tons, partly due to the expansion of handling capacity for ro-ro ships at one of the terminals in Rotterdam. The handling volume of other general cargo was significantly below the high level of the first quarter of 2017 (-22.2%, to 1.4 million tons), as the additional handling of steel in the form of slabs was discontinued again this year. The increased flow of goods in the previous year was the result of renovations to blast furnaces in Germany, which temporarily reduced local steel production. In addition, hardly any more foundations for offshore wind turbines were loaded in the last period. This activity is expected to increase again in the second quarter.