Return to the pre-pandemic level

Return to the pre-pandemic level

While H1 2020, marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, took 10% of the turnover away from Polish seaports compared to H1 2019, currently, after 8 months of this year, a growth of almost 11% has been recorded. This represents a return to the level recorded two years ago. In total, the 4 largest Polish sea ports handled approximately 56.69 million tonnes of goods in H1 2021. By comparison, 51.18 million tonnes were handled there in the corresponding period of 2020, and in the 6 months of 2019 – 56.89 million tonnes.

Compared to the H1 2020, the share of the 4 largest Polish ports in cargo handling remained unchanged over the past 6 months. As was the case a year ago, the Port of Gdańsk has a 45% share, Szczecin-Świnoujście 30%, Gdynia 24% and Police 1%. This follows on from very similar growth dynamics at the 3 larger ports. The smallest of these, Police, was the only one to record a downturn.

The port with the highest growth dynamics of cargo handling is Gdynia. Compared to the H1 2020, there was an increase of 11.8% – from 12.03 million t to 13.44 million t. At the same time, it should be recalled that in the first half of last year. Port of Gdynia was the one that recorded the lowest drop caused by the decline in trade in the first months of lockdown – just 0.5% in relation to H1 2019. This year’s growth is therefore not the result of a low base, but the consistently maintained activity of the operators of the Port of Gdynia. In the Port of Gdynia, the handling of coal, timber, general cargo and liquid fuels increased in H1 2021 compared to H1 2020. In contrast, bulk commodities recorded a drop of 4%, and cereals fell by 8.5%.

Slightly lower dynamics of turnover growth than in Gdynia, was experienced by the Szczecin – Świnoujście Seaport Complex, where in H1 2021 11.4% more cargo was handled than in H1 2020. During the 6 months of this year, nearly 17 million tonnes of cargo were handled there.Thanks to such growth dynamics, the result achieved by the West Pomeranian ports was better not only in relation to the result of 2020, but also in comparison to that of 2019, when 16.57 million tonnes of cargo were handled there.The increase in turnover was mainly due to the higher handling volumes of general cargo, coal and ore.

In contrast, the Port of Gdańsk achieved a turnover of 25.5 million tonnes in the first half of the year. This represents a 10.4% increase compared to H1 2020, which translates into 2.4 million tonnes. The increase in turnover was large, but it did not allow Poland’s largest port to return to the results of 2019. At that time, turnover in the first half of the year reached 27.3 million tonnes. The result of the port of Gdańsk was mainly accounted for by handling of cereals, timber, general cargo and liquid fuels. By contrast, the volumes of coal, ore and other bulk cargo dropped. However, the biggest impact came from the almost 19% increase in liquid fuel cargo handling. In the first half of the year, 7.98 million tonnes of liquid fuels were handled, which is 1.26 million tonnes more than in H1 2020.

Police is the port, that is once again shrinking its cargo handling volumes in the first half of the year. In the six months, 683 thousand tonnes were handled there. This result is worse than that of the 1H 2020 by over 7%, and last year’s result was not good either, as it was lower than the previous one by 20%, which was then the biggest downturn in turnover among the ports under review.

Cargo handling operations at the Polish seaportswill be one of the leading topics of the Gdynia Maritime Economy Forum, whose 20th jubilee edition will be held on 7- 8 October, 2021.

Article developed with Namiary na Morze i Handel magazine

phot. Namiary na Morze i Handel magazine