Review of Black Sea container market in HI’2018

In the first half of 2018, Black Sea container terminals of Romania, Ukraine, Russia, Georgia and Bulgaria handled 1,472,826 TEUs including empty containers and excluding transshipment. 

The review contributed to IAA PortNews by Informall BG covers only loaded containers – 1,084,213 TEUs which is up 9.25% as compared with the first half of 2017.

In HI’2018, turnover of loaded containers in the region grew by 9.25% 

Container throughput of Black Sea region in the first half of 2018 - first half of 2017, TEU loaded

The growth of container throughput was shown by all countries of the Black Sea region with the highest growth registered in Ukraine, Georgia and Bulgaria – 17.32%, 14.66% and 6.05% accordingly.

Handling of loaded containers per country, TEU

Imports account for 56.58% of containers handled in the region in the first quarter of 2018, exports – 43.42%. Loaded/empty containers ratio in the region is 73.61% / 26.39%.

Imports account for 56.58%% of containers handled in the Black Sea region

As compared with HI’17, exports of loaded containers in the Black Sea region climbed by 3.11%. Ukraine showed the steepest growth - 16.89%. The growth was demonstrated by all countries except for Georgia (-15.25%) and Romania (-6.21%): in Russia and Bulgaria it was 3.25% and 1.63% accordingly. As for imports into the region, it grew by 14.48% mostly due to increased imports to Georgia, Ukraine and Romania (up by 21.13%, 17.75% and 17.31%). Bulgaria and Russia showed the following growth of imports – 9.23% and 8.29% accordingly. 

Georgia demonstrated a record high growth of imports – by 21.13%.

Handling of loaded containers in the reported period per country is as follows: Ukraine – 29.65%, Russia – 27.90%, Romania – 22.56%, Georgia – 11.37%, Bulgaria – 8.52%.

 

Shares of Black Sea countries in total volume of loaded containers

 

In the first half of 2018, the list of top five container terminals remained almost the same with DPW (Constanta) having retained its leading position, HPC Ukraine (Odessa) having come down to the 4^th position and APMT Poti (Georgia) having climbed up to the 3^rd position. NUTEP (Russia) and Novoroslesexport (Russia) have retained their positions (the 2^nd and the 5^th accordingly). All the top five terminals of the region demonstrated the growth of container throughput.

 

 

Shares of Black Sea terminals in the first half of 2018

As for operators of Black Sea lines, the list of leaders has remained almost the same. It includes Maersk Line, MSC, ARKAS, COSCO and CMA CGM with COSCO having pushed CMA CGM down from the 4^th to the 5^th position and Maersk Line having retained its leadership.  The above lines control 73.19% of the market.

Shares of Black Sea lines in the first quarter of 2018

 

In H1’17 the total market share of Maersk and MSC was 45.42%, but in H1’18 it decreased by 2.24 p.p. to 43.18%. COSCOCS showed a considerable growth of its market share from 8.40% in H1’17 to 1.51 п.п. и 9.91% in H1’18 (up 1.51 p.p.), that allowed COSCOCS become the fourth largest carrier in the Black Sea region.  It is also worth to note that in H1’18 against H1’17 CMA CGM gained 0.12 p.p. of market share. ARKAS lost 0.29 p.p. but remained the third largest carrier in the Black Sea region.