Over 23 million tonnes handled at the Port of Gdansk

04.01.2005

At the time when a close of the year 2003 at the Port of Gdansk brought up a handling volume of 21 million tonnes, which, considering the previous decade, represented a record high result, there was a full awareness of how high a crossbar had been put up. It was common knowledge that to repeatedly attain that outcome in 2004 would have been considered successful. All the more so, as all outlooks envisaged a 50% plunge in the handling of coal (with its volume handled at the Port of Gdansk in 2003 total 5,926,194 tonnes). However, the marketing and commercial departments of both, the Port of Gdansk Authority SA and Port of Gdansk Cargo Logistics working at full stretch coupled with the improved market conditions resulted in the favourable achievements way beyond expectations. These, on the other hand, added up to another record high rate of cargo handling in the Port of Gdansk. A total volume of various commodities handled at the quays owned by the Port of Gdansk in 2004 stood at some 23,300,000 tonnes, which indicates a growth of over 2 million tonnes.

The largest share of these goods had been taken by fuels that accounted for 11,570 thou. tonnes, i.e. nearly 1,600 thou. tonnes more than in 2003. Contrary to the pessimist assumptions, the port workers had handled 5,920,844 tonnes of coal, which is only over 5 thou. less that in the previous year. It is necessary to take a note of a 105 thou. tonnes growth in general cargo, which had brought an overall result of nearly 2,400 thou. tonnes. The comparable rate in cargo handling vis-a-vis the previous year had been maintained for other bulk - slightly over 2.5 million tonnes, as well as the volume of grain that reached 390 thou. tonnes. In total, port workers have handled 22,600 thou. tonnes of various goods at their own quays, whilst, taking into consideration volumes at the other port quays, which in 2004 had stood at some 700 thou. tonnes - an overall turnover amounted to some 23.3 million tonnes of cargoes.

- Fortunately, the pessimistic prognosis of a 50% drop in the handling of coal failed to come true - says the chief dispatcher at the Port of Gdansk, Marek Czernowski. Admittedly, there had been a decreased volume of coal by some 200 thou. tonnes reported in the Northern Port, though, on the other hand, 300 thou. tonnes of coke had been acquired at the quays of the Inner Port. Such an occurrence of replacing one type of cargo with another had also been successfully applied as far as general cargo is concerned. Worthwhile to mention here is a fall in such commodities as rice, milk and citrus fruit, whilst a growth had been observed, especially in the first half-year, in the handled volumes of rolled steel and, first and foremost, in container turnover. In 2003, the Gdansk Container Terminal had handled nearly 20 thou. TEU, whereas in 2004 - already close to 41.2 thou. TEU. This bodes well for the future, even more so, as the work has been commenced on the expansion and modernisation of the Gdansk Container Terminal, which is bound to result in its increased throughput.


The figures on cargo handling volumes set out above, after the information from all quays have been compiled and completed, along with the archive data will be available on graphs in the "Cargo statistics" section.