By Theo Notteboom
The top 15 EU container ports are strongly recovering in the period from January to September 2024 after a challenging 2023:
- While 2023 was characterized by a strong to moderate traffic decline in most ports, the first nine months of 2024 brought double-digit growth in 6 of the top 15 ports.
- The effects of the Red Sea crisis and the associated shipping network modifications continue to be traceable in the West Med and the Atlantic coast with Sines, Barcelona, and Valencia all recording robust growth. Also Gioia Tauro records double-digit growth. Marsaxlokk advances 2.3%. The Spanish transshipment hub of Algeciras experienced only a modest increase in traffic, struggling against strong competition from the rapidly growing Tanger Med, which is twice its size and located on the opposite side of the Strait of Gibraltar. Las Palmas is approaching Marseille and could potentially break into the top 15 by the end of the year, thanks to a 10.1% growth in the first nine months of 2024. This growth builds on a container volume of 1.2 million from the previous year. Meanwhile, the Greek port of Piraeus faced significant traffic losses. The East Med became a maritime cul-de-sac due to the dramatic drop in Suez Canal transits.
- Among the top three ports in the EU, the Belgian port of Antwerp-Bruges shows the best performance by far with a 6.8% y-o-y growth, more than triple the growth of nearby Rotterdam. Hamburg’s volume stagnated. Bremerhaven saw a very healthy traffic development. Note that the figures for the French ports relate to H1 2024.
- Turning to the Baltic, the port of Gdansk reached a double-digit growth despite ongoing terminal extension works at the Baltic Hub. Klaipeda is not in the top 15 list but will handle more than 1 million again this year. Gdynia is also approaching the 1 million TEU threshold.
- If the current traffic trends continue throughout 2024, the top 15 rankings will change by year-end. The Benelux ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp-Bruges are set to remain the largest container ports in the EU by a significant margin. If the current growth trends continue for the rest of the year, the difference in container volume between these two major ports will shrink to less than 0.5 million TEU. The gap between Rotterdam and Hamburg widens to more than 6 million TEU. Valencia is expected to overtake Piraeus to become the fourth largest EU port in 2024 and about 2 million TEU from Hamburg’s volume. Also Algeciras might overtake Piraeus, pushing the Greek port to position 6 closely followed by Barcelona. The French HAROPA is expected to gain two places to reach the tenth position in the ranking.
