With a difference of less than 1 million tonnes (-0.5%), it is practically at pre-pandemic levels

Total port traffic exceeds 185.2 million tonnes in the first four months of the year

• Total port traffic grows 5.9% compared to 2021
• Liquid bulk, with more than 60 million tonnes, reaches a new all-time high
  
   
  
   

23-05-2022 (Public body Puertos del Estado).   The total traffic of the 46 ports of general interest of the State, coordinated by Puertos del Estado, reached 185,253,757 tonnes in the first four months of 2022, which represented an increase of 5.92% compared to the same period of the previous year.  With this data, the historical highs of 2019, the year that touched 186.2 million tonnes, have been practically reached, with a difference of just 957 thousand tonnes (-0.5%).

By presentation form, liquid bulk, with 60,047,994, grew by 12.9%, marking a new all-time high.  In this group, natural gas, with more than 7.5 million tonnes, grew by +73.5%, gasoline (5.4 million) by +30%, and crude oil (20.7 million) by +14 %.

Solid bulk, which grew by +12.5%, exceeded 30.2 million tonnes, with the increase in cereals and their flours being especially significant (+59.3%) with close to 5 million tonnes, coal and petroleum coke (+34.1%) with 5.5 million, and 5.6 million tonnes of non-metallic minerals (+15%).

Finally, general goods, the largest group with more than 90 million tonnes, is still -1.2% below the 2021 data, although conventional general goods (27.2 million tonnes) has grown by +9.7%, and already exceeds pre-pandemic data.  Products such as wood and cork (+24.6%), or wines, beverages, alcohols and derivatives (+13%) contributed to this increase.

Ro-ro traffic, industrial vehicles loaded with goods that are shipped, continues to grow at a rate of +10.7% compared to the previous year, exceeding 22.8 million tonnes, and more than +6% compared to the 2019 data.  This increase has been particularly noticeable in the number of trailers and loaded platforms, which reached 448,578 units. 

Container traffic, accounted for in TEUs, has decreased by -2.9%, standing at 5.66 million TEUs.  The greatest decrease occurred in containers in transit (-5.2%), which account for nearly 54% of the containers moved.

Finally, passenger traffic continues to recover, and an increase of +147% has been noted in the total, exceeding 6.1 million passengers, a percentage that has been much higher in cruise passenger traffic, which at 1.4 million passengers, grows by +718%, although it still represents 50% of the figure for 2019, a year with 2.8 million cruise passengers at this point of the year.  This is due to the fact that, despite the good performance in the number of cruise stopovers, 20% more than in 2019 (1,355 stopovers in the first four months), the ships still did not present 100% passenger occupancy levels due to health reasons.

For more information:  Pages - Monthly Statistics (puertos.es)