Cargo, Containers, Good for Business, Latvia, Port, Transport

Bulk cargos prevailed among cargos handled by Latvian ports in the first ten months of 2016, accounting for 25.768 mln tons and dropping 6.8 % from January-October 2015. Coal accounted for 12.855 mln tons of all bulk cargos handled in the said period, down 219.8% y-o-y, chemical bulk cargos rose 13.5% to 2.677 mln tons, and woodchip cargos surged 23.3 % to 1.019 mln tons.

Handling of liquid cargos fell 22.4% y-o-y to 16.959 mln tons in the first ten months of this year, with oil products prevailing among liquid cargos and dropping 22.7% to 16.305 mln tons. Crude oil handling at the Latvian ports shrank 48.6% from January-October 2015 to 42,400 tons.

General cargos fell 0.7% y-o-y to 8.966 mln tons in January-October this year. This amount included 3.342 mln tons of container cargos, up 3.5%, 2.832 mln tons of timber, down 6%, and 2.34 mln tons of roll on/roll off cargos, up 4.5% compared to the ten-month period in 2015.

Riga led other Latvian ports by cargo turnover in the first ten months of this year, having handled 30.411 mln tons, which was 8.8% less than in the same period in 2015. The north-western Latvian port of Ventspils came second with 15.468 mln tons reloaded in January-October 2016, down 19.8% y-o-y, and Liepaja in south-western Latvia was third with 4.551 mln tons, down 1.6% y-o-y.

Among Latvia's small ports, Skulte had the largest cargo turnover in the first ten months of 2016 at 602,300 tons, which was a 25.6% rise from the same period in 2015. The total amount of cargos reloaded at Latvia's small ports in January-October this year was 1.264 mln tons, up 7.8% y-o-y.

The Latvian ports handled 52.708 mln tons of cargo in the first nine months of 2015 and 69.569 mln tons in the full year 2015, which was 6.2% less than a year before.