North Sea Port on course to make up losses in first quarter 2021

Imports rose by 2.6% to 12 million tonnes, exports fell by 7.8% to 4.6 million tonnes.

Ro/ro and dry bulk are up

Ro-Ro transport continues to recover strongly. It increased by almost 13% to round 1 million tonnes as compared to the first quarter of 2020 when the corona crisis very much affected the last 2 weeks of March
Dry bulk transhipment reached 8.4 million tonnes, an increase of 1.5%. The growth is mainly due to the transhipment of dry fertilizers and scrap.

General cargo fell by 4.1% to 2.5 million tonnes. Liquid bulk also decreased, by 3.4% to 4.3 million tonnes. In particular, the supply of petroleum fuels and energy gases is declining.
The share of containers decreased by 8.4% to 0.6 million. However, the volume of container transhipment more than doubled in the last three years.

Among the main trade partners, the transhipment of goods with Great Britain continues to register losses (-13.1%).

Inland shipping

The total transhipment by inland shipping during the first quarter of this year amounted to 14.2 million tonnes (-7.5%).

Recovery in corona times

January 2021 saw a loss of 2% and February 0,8%, in March there was an increase of 1%. Similar goods transhipments over the next few quarters may well make up for almost half of the 11% loss of corona year 2020 (versus 2019)
This would then be in line with the forecast of a (full) recovery by the end of 2022.