14.6% increase of cargos at the Freeport of Riga

 

In August, the biggest cargo ship that has ever entered the Riga Port – 249 meters long, 43 meters wide and with draught of 15 meters – arrived to Riga. 93 500 tons of coal were loaded in the ship “Nord Pisces” navigating under the flag of Singapore. In order to completely load this ship, two berths were used; up to the desired amount it was loaded in the deepwater berth in Žurku Island. Previous biggest ship “Kyzikos” navigating under the flag of Greece was 230 m long, 37 m wide, draught of 14.2 m, and it entered the Riga Port on 28 October 2010. Then, 82.2 thousand tons of iron ore were loaded in it. Andris Ameriks, Chairman of the Board at the Freeport of Riga Authority, emphasizes: “In order to completely load such ships, we are currently forced to use two berths. Up to a certain amount, so that draught of the ship did not exceed the admissible level in the specific berth, ships are loaded from the shore, but later they are moored to Žurku Island where cargo is added up to the draught that does not exceed 15 meters. Thus, both loading time of ships increases and costs are higher than if ships were loaded in one place. Therefore again and again we must point to the necessity to implement the project of Krievu Island. There will be four berths in Krievu Island, and it will be possible to load also such huge ships up to the desired amount in one place. I would also like to inform that the final decision has finally been made and implementation of this project will be entrusted to general partnership company of Latvia “BMG S” that has been repeatedly announced the winner of the procurement tender.”

The segment of liquid cargos in August has also increased at the Freeport of Riga as compared with the amount of cargos transshipped in eight months of last year – total cargo turnover in comparison with the period of account of last year has increased by 30.6%, reaching the border of 5.38 million tons, which is by 1.26 million tons more. The absolutely biggest part of the total amount of liquid cargos is oil products (5.35 million tons).

Also in the segment of bulk cargos, by 1.66 million tons more than last year were transshipped. In total, 12.89 million tons were transshipped in this segment, which is by 14.7% more than last year. The biggest proportion in this segment is coal that were transshipped in the amount of 8.9 million tons this year. It is by 17.8% more than in eight months of 2010. The second most significant cargo group of this segment is artificial fertilizers. 1.06 million tons of them were transshipped, which is by 11.7% more. With the harvest season, transport of grain has increased by 50%. Notable dynamics can be observed in the cargo group of ferroalloys – their amount has increased by 71.4%. Meanwhile, transport of sawn timber as compared with last year has decreased by 35.2%, export of woodchips – by 18% and export of peat – by 33.5%. In other cargo groups bigger or smaller increase can be observed.

Though total segment of general cargos has decreased by almost one %, the most notable cargo group of this segment – container cargos – continues to grow. In 8 months of this year, by 17.5% more than in the period of account of last year have been transshipped. In August, the biggest amount of container cargos per month was processed – 280.5 thousand tons. In total, a little more than 2 million tons of container cargos have been transshipped and more than 194 thousand containers TEU have been processed, which is by 20.7% more than in eight months of last year. In the segment of general cargos, transport of fish and their products, chemical cargos, metals, food, timber products, grain and grain products, Roll on and roll of cargos has decreased. It should be noted that cargo groups where decrease of turnover has occurred have a rather small role in the total cargo assortment of the Freeport of Riga.

Total number of passengers as compared with eight months of 2010 has increased by 11.3%, or 625 701 passengers have been serviced at the Riga Port this year. Of them, 117 153 are passengers of cruise ships.