Hamburg Container Volumes Boom

The Port of Hamburg, Germany’s largest universal port, wrapped up the first three quarters of this year with a container throughput of 7 million TEUs, denoting a growth of 6.9 per cent year-over-year. 

The progress is primarily attributable to the four new transatlantic services and four new Baltic feeder services.

In the first three-quarters of the year, 439,000 TEU were handled via container services with the USA, Hamburg’s second most important trading partner.

That is 336,000 TEU more than in the same period of the previous year, meaning a surge of 325 per cent.

The Port also reported a 3.2 per cent growth in seaborne cargo throughput which increased to 104 million tons in the first nine months of 2019.

Ingo Egloff, Joint CEO of Port of Hamburg, commented, “Including the existing liner services, in Hamburg, we can offer port customers a total of 14 direct links with 29 ports in the USA, Mexico and Canada.

An additional 15 feeder and liner services in the first nine months provide a clear indication that the Port of Hamburg is now even more attractive for shipping and shippers.

“At 2.6 million TEU for the first nine months, the 4.3 per cent advance in transhipment handling during the first three quarters contributed to the satisfactory total result,” Egloff added.

Since the beginning of 2019, the new transatlantic services operated by Hapag-Lloyd and Ocean Network Express (ONE) have connected Hamburg with ports in the USA, Canada and Mexico.

During the first three quarters, the number of calls by mega-containerships – with slot capacities of 18,000 TEU and over – increased by 18.3 per cent to 123. In Egloff’s view, this underlines the importance of the passing box now being constructed on the Elbe, along with the rapid implementation of other measures as part of the fairway adjustment.

Fuente : Port Technology