This was one million tonnes or four percent more than in the year 2014. 25.1 million tonnes of freight were loaded and unloaded at Rostock overseas port. According to the port and shipping authority another 2.1 million tonnes were moved at the cargo and fishing port, the chemical port and other port facilities of the Hanseatic city. All told, Rostock overseas port logged 7,883 port calls by ferry and ro-ro vessels, tankers, freighters and cruise liners last year, of which as many as 6,076 port calls were made by ferry and ro-ro vessels.
Jens A. Scharner and Dr. Gernot Tesch expressed their great satisfaction with this trend in their first year at the helm of Rostock Port Development Company: “At 25.1 million tonnes (gross) of goods handled in 2015, the port companies in Rostock achieved the fourth best handling result in the history of the overseas port, recording a plus of four percent compared to 2014″, states Jens A. Scharner. „This very positive result is all the more remarkable since an accident in the grain division of the port caused several hundred thousand tonnes of handling to be lost and the high-tonnage handling of liquid goods was weak in 2015. We are particularly gratified by the fact that the growth in high value-creating cargo types such as ferry and ro-ro cargo, paper and general cargo managed to more than make up for the decline in high-tonnage cargo types”, Dr. Gernot Tesch adds.
The number of ferry passengers carried on the lines to Denmark, Sweden and Finland increased by 200,000 to 2.2 million travellers. This makes Rostock the largest German ferry passenger port with several scheduled connections to northern Europe.
There was strong growth in wheeled cargo, ferry and ro-ro goods and general cargo. Dry bulk handling suffered a slight setback and liquid cargo handling a larger one.
Last year’s handling of dry bulk cargo was just below the high level of the previous year, at a total of seven million tonnes. Apart from the slight growth in grain handling of 3.3 million tonnes the 623,000 tonnes of cement pumped over the edge of the quay also made a positive difference. By contrast the handling of split gravel declined by 130,000 tonnes to 315,000 tonnes. “Grain handling could have turned out even higher if a grain loader hadn’t broken down as the result of a fire towards the end of the year”, explains Dr. Gernot Tesch. “This stresses the urgent necessity of building another efficient grain loader at the overseas port in order to provide all grain traders active here now and in the future with a reliable basis for extending their business activities.”
At 2.4 million tonnes the handling of liquid goods showed a deficit of 600,000 tonnes or 19 percent compared to 2014. Last year lower amounts of petrol, biodiesel, gas oil and fuel oil were pumped over the edge of the quay in Rostock.
Handling of general cargo was doubled to 956,000 tonnes loaded and unloaded. Especially sheet metal, slabs, pipes and wind power plants increased in handling.