Cargo, Latvia, Port, Transport

Bulk cargos, which dominated in the Latvian ports in January-February this year, fell 13.4% year-on-year to 5.336 million tons. Coal cargos contracted 26.3% to 2.614 million tons, chemical cargos rose 12.3% to 477,000 tons and woodchip cargos dropped 30.2% to 223,100 tons.

Reloading of liquid cargos in the Latvian ports was down 30.5% to 2.815 million tons in January-February 2018. Oil products made up the largest part of the liquid cargos reloaded in the first two months of this year, falling 31.3% year-on-year to 2.686 million tons.

Handling of general cargos increased 20.1% to 2.092 million tons. Container cargos rose 9.2% to 817,500 tons and roll on/roll off cargos grew 21.4% to 563,000 tons. Timber was up 35.2% to 621,800 tons.

Riga led other Latvian port by cargo turnover in January-February this year, having reloaded 5.483 million tons of cargo, which was 10.1% less than in the first two months of 2017. The port of Ventspils followed with 3.091 million tons of cargo reloaded in January-February 2018, down 31.4% year-on-year, and the port of Liepaja was third with 1.385 million tons of cargo, up 29.4% from January-February 2017.

Skulte led Latvia's small ports by cargo turnover in January-February 2018, as it reloaded 134,500 tons, down 5.5% year-on-year. Mersrags followed with 70,300 tons, down 0.7%, and Salacgriva was third with 66,300 tons at a 42.3% rise from the first two months of 2017.

All small Latvian ports together handled 283,400 tons of cargos in January-February this year, up 3.2% from the same period last year.

In 2017, the Latvian ports reloaded 61.877 million tons of cargo, down 2% from 2016.