Cargo, Latvia, Port, Transport

Bulk cargos, which dominated in the Latvian ports in January-June this year, fell 3.3% y-o-y to 17.618 mln tons. Coal cargos contracted 9.1% to 9.44 mln tons, chemical cargos were down 7.6% to 1.377 mln tons and woodchip cargos rose 1.8% to 809,400 tons.

Reloading of liquid cargos in the Latvian ports was down 20.4% to 8.108 mln tons in January-June 2018. Oil products made up the largest part of the liquid cargos reloaded in the first six months of this year, falling 21.6% y-o-y to 7.655 mln tons.

Handling of general cargos increased 20% y-o-y to 6.715 mln tons in January-June 2018. Container cargos rose 9.9% to 2.427 mln tons and roll on/roll off cargos grew 16.2% to 1.761 mln tons. Timber was up 40% to 2.249 mln tons.

Riga led other Latvian port by cargo turnover in January-June this year, having reloaded 17.63 mln tons of cargo, which was 0.7% more than in the first six months of 2017. The port of Ventspils followed with 9.999 mln tons of cargo reloaded in January-June 2018, down 19.2% y-o-y, and the port of Liepaja was third with 3.869 mln tons of cargo, up 17.8% against the first half of 2017.

Skulte led Latvia's small ports by cargo turnover in January-June 2018, as it reloaded 464,000 tons, up 5.3% y-o-y. Mersrags followed with 247,100 tons, up 9.3%, and Salacgriva was third with 189,100 tons at a 39.8 % rise from the first six months of 2017.

All small Latvian ports together handled 943,800 tons of cargos in January-June this year, up 13.7% from the same period last year.

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