Cargo, Latvia, Port, Transport

Bulk cargos, which dominated in the Latvian ports in January-April this year, fell 13.3% year-on-year to 11.604 million tons. Coal cargos contracted 21.4% to 6.143 million tons, chemical cargos were down 12.5% to 924,700 tons and woodchip cargos dropped 10.6% to 574,300 tons.

Reloading of liquid cargos in the Latvian ports was down 26.5% to 5.526 million tons in January-April 2018. Oil products made up the largest part of the liquid cargos reloaded in the first four months of this year, falling 27.9% year-on-year to 5.227 million tons.

Handling of general cargos increased 22% year-on-year to 4.427 million tons in January-April 2018. Container cargos rose 9.5% to 1.647 million tons and roll on/roll off cargos grew 19.3% to 1.161 million tons. Timber was up 44.5% to 1.441 million tons.

Riga led other Latvian port by cargo turnover in January-April this year, having reloaded 11.449 million tons of cargo, which was 6.3% less than in the first four months of 2017. The port of Ventspils followed with 6.878 million tons of cargo reloaded in January-April 2018, down 27.2% year-on-year, and the port of Liepaja was third with 2.609 million tons of cargo, up 14.2% from January-April 2017.

Skulte led Latvia's small ports by cargo turnover in January-April 2018, as it reloaded 290,200 tons, up 0.1% year-on-year. Mersrags followed with 149,800 tons, down 3.8%, and Salacgriva was third with 148,200 tons at a 45.6% rise from the first four months of 2017.

All small Latvian ports together handled 620,600 tons of cargos in January-April this year, up 8.4% from the same period last year.

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