NLE leapfrogs APMT Poti in Black Sea ranking

The Black Sea Container Market Review of 2015 from Informall BG shows that, in terms of total volume handled in Q1 2016, APMT Poti has dropped to fourth position with 10.66% of the total volume, allowing NLE in Russia to assume the Georgian terminal’s former second place with a share of 11.77% .

Whilst the top spot remains unchanged for DPW in Romania (19.42%), last quarter’s third and fifth positions – NUTEP in Russia and HPC in Ukraine respectively – have swapped places and now have percentage shares of 11.46% (HPC) and 9.94% (NUTEP).

Overall turnover in the region is down by 2.94%, primarily as a result of a large drop for Georgia (36.75%). All other countries have shown positive growth, with Ukraine seeing the largest increase of 5.98% followed by Russia (4.63%), Bulgaria (2.20%) and Romania (0.16%).

During Q1 2016, 52.62% of full containers were imported, with 47.38% exported. It is estimated that the laden container share was almost three-quarters of all volumes handled (72.54%).

Export volumes increased by 9.12% compared to Q1 2015. Despite a significant drop of 33.64% for Georgia, Russia and Ukraine achieved growths of 60.34% and 11.94% respectively. Imports to the region decreased by 11.73%, mainly owing to a Georgian import drop of 37.36%. Russia, too, saw a drop of 14.35% whilst Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine all saw increases of 8.12%, 2.24% and 0.02% respectively.

This gives overall figures of laden volume handled as follows: Ukraine – 28.29%, Russia – 26.62%, Romania – 25.26%, Georgia – 10.41% and Bulgaria – 9.43%.

As for the carriers of the region, there was a new leader – MAERSK took the top spot from MSC, whilst ARKAS overcame ZIM to become the fourth largest carrier in the region. The top five carriers were MAERSK (23.31%), MSC (21.63%), CMA CGM (11.08%), ARKAS (10.04%) and ZIM (8.30%). Between them they account for nearly three-quarters of the market.