Belgium’s port of Antwerp handled 156.5 million tonnes of freight in the first nine months of this year, up 5.5% on the same period last year, which puts the port firmly in position to end 2015 with a record breaking total volume of 200 million tonnes.
The container volume rose during the first nine months by 8%, reaching 7.26 million TEUs.
In terms of tonnage, the volume came to 85.5 million tonnes, up 5.4%.
The ro/ro volume for its part was up by 2.5% to 3.5 million tonnes, although the number of cars handled was down by 9.7% to 825,312 vehicles.
The conventional breakbulk volume in the meantime was down by 1.8%, with 7.3 million tonnes handled by the end of the first nine months.
The volume of iron and steel was up slightly by 2.4% to about 5 million tonnes. The decline in the breakbulk segment is due to the increasing containerisation of fruit and the consequent fall in conventional handling.
The liquid bulk volume rose during the past nine months by 7.9% to 49.8 million tonnes.
By the end of the first nine months of 2015, the dry bulk volume had risen by 2.4% to 10.48 million tonnes.
A total of 10,786 seagoing ships called at the port of Antwerp during the past nine months, 2.5% more than in the same period last year. The gross tonnage for its part rose by 7.7% to 271 million GT.
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