In the third quarter of this year, Spanish ports handled a total of 138.5 million tons of goods, with an increase of +2.4% over the same period in 2023, according to inforMARE. In the container sector alone, traffic was 48.2 million tons (+6.9%) and was built with a handling of containers amounting to almost 4.6 million TEUs, with an increase of +9.9% mainly generated by containers in transit results of 2.4 million TEUs (+13.2%), a flow that benefited from the effects of the crisis in the Red Sea, which is forcing the ships to avoid crossing the Suez Canal, but also the growth in import-export containers, which amounted to almost 2.2 million TEUs (+6.4%). In the field of miscellaneous goods, 20.7 million tons of goods also handled conventional (+1.1%). Liquid bulk cargo increased slightly with 44.1 million tons (+1.1%), while dry bulk cargo recorded a decrease of -2.3% to 21.8 million tons.
In the first nine months of 2024, Spanish ports handled 422.1 million tons of cargo, with an increase in by +3.1% on the same period of last year. Goods in containers amounted to 146.4 million tons (+9.5%) with container handling of 13.7 million TEUs (+11.8%), of which 7.4 million TEUs in transit (+17.8%) and 6.3 million TEUs million TEUs in import-export (+5.5%). Conventional goods totalled 64.6 million tonnes (+1.4%). Bulk were 135.9 million tonnes, with an increase in of +3.4% mainly due to - announced the government agency Puertos del Estado - the good performance of chemicals (+127.8%) and gasoline (+26.7%), and in general of the oil and derivatives, while dry bulk cargo, with 63.7 million of tonnes, decreased by -8.3% due to the a drop in coal (-47.2%) and some food products.
In the first nine months of this year, passenger traffic increased 31.8 million people (+3.6%), of which 9.1 million cruise passengers (+6.2%).
