Double record for Port of Antwerp in 2015

On December 31, Antwerp’s figure for the volume of freight handled stood at 208,423,920 tonnes, a 4.7% increase on the previous year, which ended with a volume of 199m mt. While its container volumes rose by 7.5% on 2014.

In addition, the port’s ro-ro volume increased by 4.1% to 4,653,351 tonnes; liquid bulk volume was up 6.1% to 66,668,371 tonnes; volume of oil rose by 4% to 47,904,167 tonnes; and, chemicals experienced a particularly strong growth on 2014, jumping by 18.2% to 13,442,950 tonnes.

With these growth figures, Antwerp is performing significantly better than both Rotterdam and Hamburg, which are first and third respectively in North-West Europe.

Looking ahead, Antwerp is expected to reinforce its position as the largest integrated petrochemical cluster in Europe with two big investments planned by its tenants.

Invoyn is planning a major investment in a large-sale potassium hydroxide plant that is due to enter production in 2017. While Japanese company Nippon Shokubai has already begun work on an investment that will give its Antwerp plant more capacity for production of super-absorbent polymers and acetic acid by 2018.