WASHINGTON: During the first eight months of this year all Latvian ports together handled 41.104 mln tons of cargo, which was a 13.4% drop from the same period last year, LETA was told at the Transport Ministry.
Bulk cargos were the main type of cargo reloaded at the Latvian ports in the eight-month period. The turnover of bulk cargos contracted 9.6% year-on-year to 19.83 mln tons in January-August 2016. This amount included 9.952 mln tons of coal, down 25.8% year-on-year, 2.165 tons of chemical cargos, up 11.2%, and 851,400 tons of woodchip cargos, up 26%. Handling of liquid cargos was down 22% to 14.279 mln tons, with oil products accounting for 13.763 mln tons of the liquid cargos reloaded at the Latvian ports in said period, which was a 22.4% drop from the first eight months of last year. Handling of crude oil fell 48.4% to 36,400 tons.
Handling of general cargos, meanwhile, declined 3.1% year-on-year to 6.995 mln tons in the eight months of 2016. Container cargos roise 1 % to 2.608 mln tons, timber was down 7.2% to 2.294 mln tons and roll on/roll off cargos rose 1.9% to 1.821 mln tons. Riga was the leading Latvian port by cargo turnover, with 23.873 mln tons reloaded in the first eight months of this year, which was 10.8% less than a year ago. Ventspils followed with 12.848 mln tons, down 21.6%, and Liepaja came third with 3.353 mln tons, down 0.4%.
Skulte emerged as the leader among Latvia’s small ports as cargo turnover in Skulte port grew 22.5% to 469,100 tons in the eight months of 2016. Mersrags came second with 326,199 tons handled in the eight-month period, up 9%, and Salacgriva was third with 200,400 tons, down 24.4% year-on-year. All small Latvian ports together reloaded 1.031 tons of cargo in the eight months of 2016, which was a 6.5 % increase against the same period last year. The ports of Latvia reloaded 47.479 mln tons of cargo in the first eight months of 2015 and 69.569 mln tons in the full 2015, which was a 6.2 % drop from 2014.
