Container traffic through Spanish ports increases by 3.6%, surpassing 515.7 million tons as of November
The total traffic of the 46 Spanish ports during the first eleven months of the year reached 515,753,859 tons, which represented an increase of 3.6% compared to the same period in 2021. Despite the slowdown in port traffic growth in recent months, the difference in traffic volume compared to 2019, when a historical record was achieved, continues to decrease, with a difference of only 4.6 million tons, very close to reaching the pre-pandemic level.
The global economic slowdown and logistical and distribution imbalances have been felt in port traffic, causing a decrease of -1.2% in general cargo traffic and -5.5% in transit container goods. Despite this, it seems that the end of the 2022 financial year will reach similar figures to those achieved in 2019, which was a record traffic year.
According to the presentation form, in the accumulated eleven months of 2022, general containers exceeded 250 million tons (-1.2%), highlighting increases in wood and cork (+11%). The decrease in the movement of container goods (-4.6%) continues to be offset by the increase in conventional container traffic (+7.5%).
Liquid bulk increased by 6.2% compared to the accumulated eleven months of 2021, with a total of 165.7 million tons, thanks to the significant increase in natural gas (+44%) with 20.4 million tons, in addition to crude oil (+11.8%) with 58.4 million tons and gasoline (+11.3%).
Finally, the third major group of goods, which corresponds to solid bulk, increased by 10.6% with 85.8 million tons accumulated to November of this year, highlighting the strong increase in coal (+62.5%) with 17.3 million tons and cereals and flours (+42.4%) with 14.7 million tons.
Ro-ro traffic, which exceeds the volume achieved in 2019 by almost 9%, has grown by 9.7% compared to the previous year, with 65.5 million tons.
Containers recorded a movement of 15.8 million TEUs in these eleven months of 2022, with a decrease of 2.5% compared to 2021, mainly due to the -5.5% decrease in transit containers, and despite the good performance of domestic traffic (+4.7%), compared to the previous year.
Passenger traffic continues to recover at a spectacular rate, with a growth of 87.8% compared to the same period of the previous year, surpassing this month 30.6 million passengers both regular and cruise, thanks to the opening this year of the Strait Operation and the recovery of cruise traffic, which experienced a growth of 294.8%, with 7.5 million cruisers.