First-half container throughput reached 4.5 million TEU (20-ft standard containers), remaining 6.8 percent below the impressive previous year’s total. On bulk cargo handling, with a dramatic rise of 19 percent it was especially the strong coal and ore imports, totalling 11.5 million tons, which led to grab cargoes powering growth. Coal imports reached 3.8 million tons, producing strong growth of 46.3 percent. Apart from the steelworks of Northern and Eastern Germany, the main customers for coal are industry, and power stations. When running at full capacity, the new Moorburg coal-fired power station in operation in Hamburg since March this year will require up to 4.2 million tons of hard coal annually. Coal imports are unloadedat its own facility. “This volume of coal will enable up to 11 billion kilowatt hours of power to be generated, or almost as much as Hamburg needs in a year. At the same time, the plant produces one-quarter less CO2 than older coal-fired stations, and
moreover can be steered so flexibly as to react very effectively to fluctuating power input derived from renewable energy sources,” says Pieter Wasmuth, head of Vattenfall for Hamburg and Northern Germany.
Due to increased grain exports, especially, the suction cargoes segment achieved a particularly good result at 5.3 million tons, up by 22.4 percent. First-half throughput of liquid cargoes at 6.7 million tons was 3.3 percent slightly below the comparable figure last year.
At 876,000 tons, handling of non-containerized general cargo, large plant elements and wheeled cargoes for example, remained 5.8 percent below the previous year’s total. At 4.5 million TEU (20-ft standard containers), container handling in the first six months of the year did not keep pace with the previous year’s strong performance. The 6.8 percent downturn was primarily attributable to weak foreign trade for the port’s two leading partners, China and Russia, for which container traffic totals via Hamburg were distinctly lower than last year’s, for China by 10.9 percent at 1.3 million TEU and for Russia by 35.9 percent at 212,000 TEU.