The Port of Gdansk ranks among the leading Baltic ports

22.12.2003

Over the recent years, ranked among the leading Baltic ports there were: Ventspils, Tallinn, Lubeck, St. Petersburg and Rostock. The handling volumes recorded for these ports exceeded the threshold of 20 million tonnes. From Sunday, December 21 this year, the Port of Gdansk is numbered among the leaders.

By the day end of Saturday, the Gdansk stevedores had handled 19,997 thousand tonnes. It was, therefore, expected that the 20-millionth tonne should be handled during shift I on Sunday. Carried out at that time was the handling of scrap (1.2 thou. tonnes), liquid urea (4 thou. tonnes) and also the discharging of OOCL container-carrier Nevskiy. And it was actually among those 1,048 tonnes of contenerised cargoes discharged onto the quay owned by the Gdansk Container Terminal that the 20-millionth tonne was handled at the Port of Gdansk.

Thus, by December 21 this year, inclusive, the Gdansk stevedores had handled 20.024 million tonnes of various cargoes. Among them the most were fuels - 9.426 million tonnes, coal - 5.813 million tonnes, other bulk - 2.470 million tonnes, general cargo - 2.045 million tonnes, grain - 188 thou. tonnes, ore - 100 thou. tonnes and timber - 2 thou. tonnes.

In line with the outlooks, by the end of the year, the total volume of cargo handled will amount to 20.5 million tonnes, whereas additionally, by the end of November, at the private quays owned by the Port of Gdansk 700 thou. tonnes had been handled.

Such good results have not been recorded at the Port of Gdansk for many years now. The previous time that saw an over 20-million-tonne volume of cargo handled was the year 1994 (22.085 million tonnes). It is important that, according to the 2004 estimates, it is likely for the handling volumes to be maintained at the rates recorded for 2003.