In total, the port of Zeebrugge handled over 40 million tonnes of goods in 2018. In comparison to the result of 2017 this means a rise of 8 percent, the company said in its release. This increase is mostly due to the volumes in roll-on/roll-off traffics and liquid natural gas, two very important sectors for the port of Zeebrugge. The container volumes are status quo, but the prospects in that sector for 2019 are very positive.
The roll-on/roll-off traffic rises 6.4% to a total volume of nearly 16 million tonnes. Growth occurs on the following destinations: UK (+5.7%), Ireland (+16.8%) and Spain (+21.4%). The increase in traffic on Spain is due to Cobelfret’s new connection to Santander and Finnlines’ scaling up of the ships on the Bilbao route. Deepsea roro-traffic also rises 10%.
The discontinuation of the service on Rosyth (-500,000 tonnes) was compensated by the growth on Teesport (+200,000 tonnes) and Hull (LoLo & Roro: + 250.000 tonnes).
Zeebrugge handled 2,8 million new vehicles, which is the same result as in 2017.
The containers in TEU increased by +5.2%, but the total tonnage dropped -1.3% to 15.2 million tonnes in total.
The new container terminal CSP Zeebrugge (Cosco Shipping Ports Zeebrugge) currently uses 37% of the available capacity. The expectations of the terminal operator for 2019 are very positive.
The liquid bulk volume rises significantly (+63%) to a total of 6.7 million tonnes, due to the LNG-volumes, which noted a staggering rise of +257.7% to 3.5 million tonnes. The LNG deliveries from Sabetta have commenced in 2018 and also the volume of LNG from Qatar increased after a few years of decrease.
The breakbulk goods in the port reduced with -21.8% to 1 million tonnes.
Dry bulk drops -6,1 percent to 1.2 million tonnes.
The number of cruises remains the same as in 2017. 143 cruise vessels moored at the port of Zeebrugge in 2018.
The number of shifts of port labourers reaches a record number in 2018 (over 300,000 shift, which is +0.8%) and also the number of port labourers grew by +1.7% to a total of 2,100 port labourers in Zeebrugge.