Energy, Good for Business, Lithuania, Oil, Port, Transport

In April alone, cargo volumes in Klaipeda grew by 4.2% year-on-year to 3.265 million tons, a new record high for the month, the port authority said.

The previous record was set in April 2014 at 3.18 million tons.

"The growth is largely due to liquid fertilizers, mostly oil products," Arvydas Vaitkus, the port's CEO, said at a news conference on Monday.

"We are glad to see a recovery in oil shipments. We have now crossed 6 million tons, compared with around 5 million tons we handled several years ago," he said.

According to Vaitkus, agricultural product volumes surged by 67.1% year-on-year, with grain loadings alone up by 79.5%. Container handling and ro-ro cargo volumes are also growing.

The total number of ship arrivals in Klaipeda rose by 211 ships, or 10.5%, in the four months year-on-year to 2,214 ships.

Lithuania's Butinge crude terminal, which is owned by Orlen Lietuva, the Lithuanian unit of Poland's PKN Orlen, posted a 13.7% year-on-year growth in oil throughput for January through April.

The terminal handled 2.9 million tons of oil during the four months, up from 2.55 million tons a year earlier, the Klaipeda port authority told BNS on Monday.

Annual throughput at the terminal last year increased by 18.4% to 8.679 million tons.

Orlen Lietuva has been importing crude oil via Butinge solely for its own needs since mid-2006.