Traffic in the Port of Tarragona maintains the levels accumulated in the first six months of the year

Agri-food products and general cargo were the best-performing traffic types

During the first six months of the year, the Port of Tarragona has handled (loaded and unloaded) 16.2 million tons of cargo, representing a growth of 0.3% with respect to the same period last year. These figures have been achieved despite the technical shutdown of the Repsol plant.

If we take the data from June, cargo traffic fell by 32% with respect to the same month in the previous year: 1.8 million tons compared to 2.6 million tons in June 2017. The fact that the maintenance work on the refined products line coincided with that on the Repsol monobuoy was the main cause of this decrease. Thus, a decrease of 659 thousand tons in crude oil (-81.6%) and 420 thousand tons in petroleum products are the basic reasons for the lower figures. Coal also fell by 154 thousand tons.

There was growth in the agri-food sector at 385,268 tons (+168.1%) and general cargo at 218,302 tons (+11.4%).

Agri-food and general cargo continue to grow

The positive data for June can be found in cereals and their flours, which grew by 1,375.2% to 220,452 tons. If we look at the accumulated figure for the first six months of the year, this semester was one of the best in the Port of Tarragona’s history at 1.9 million tons, exceeding the 1.3 million tons handled in the first six months of 2008, until now the best semester in agri-food traffic.

The other cargo group showing very positive figures is that of general, non-containerised cargo, which grew by 25.1% in June and by 23.3% over the first six months of the year. These figures place this semester as the best in the Port’s history at 871 thousand tons, exceeding the 706 thousand tons of the previous year. This growth is based on an increase of 109 thousand tons in paper and paper pulp (+50.9%), with traffic in the semester reaching 325 thousand tons; an increase in iron and steel products, with a movement of 288 thousand tons, 61 thousand tons more during the first six months of this year (+27,2%); and a new traffic in baled plastics (included in the chemical products statistics), which rose to 21 thousand tons handled during the semester.

Further significant data in the month of is that referring to cruise ships, which brought 16,235 passengers (+84.2%), a figure that rises to 37,541 in the cumulative figure for the semester (+258.1%). In terms of stopovers, there were 8 in June and 25 in total from January to June (+127.3%). The figure for merchant vessels operating in the Port of Tarragona in the first semester of 2018 is 1,317.