South Europe handles most container volume

Rotterdam is the largest container port in Europe with growth of 14% and 12.38m teu processed from 2007-16, data from PortEconomics shows.

Antwerp follows with growth of 22.8% in the same period and 10.04m teu in 2016.

Hamburg also processed 8.91m teu in 2016, said Dr Theo Notteboom, co-founder and co-director of PortEconomics, in a report for the seaports initiative.

The Rhine-Scheldt Delta remains the most important container port region in Europe with 24m teu handled in 2016.

Piraeus is responsible for the steep growth of the Greek container port system. The port’s container volume increased from 1.37-3.67m teu from 2007-16.

The North German port system recorded a minuscule growth of 0.6% to reach 14.94m teu in 2016, although volume is said to be picking up with its new large-scale terminal facility.

The Portuguese port system increased its European share to 2.5% in 2016 (up from 1.3% in 2007) and the Port of Sines reached 1.51m teu in 2016, 10 times more than in 2007.

In the 2007-2016 period, the North Adriatic added 1.15 million TEU to its container throughput or a high growth of 92%.

By 2016, the Spanish Med port region’s European share increased to 6.9% representing a growth of 1.34m teu or 23.6% compared to 2007. The decline seen amongst individual Spanish ports is believed to be a result of the 2008 financial crisis.

The UK SE Coast port region added 0.44m teu to its container throughput during the analysed period. Its growth of 6.4% was less than half that of the total EU container port system in the same timeframe.

While the Seine Estuary’s teu throughput is about 8% below the 2007 volume, the region’s share in European container traffic remained stable at 2.5% in the past few years.

Belgian coastal port Zeebrugge witnessed a decrease of 31% between 2007-16, mainly caused by a weakening position in the calling patterns of alliances/carriers on the Europe-Far East trade.

Total container throughput in the EU increased by 13.9% during the studied period.