By Theo Notteboom
The portgraphic shows the changes in container throughput in European ports between pre-crisis year 2007 and last year. We use absolute growth figures in TEU. The total container throughput in the entire European container port system increased by some 17 million TEU between 2007 and 2017, but not all ports saw traffic gains. Hamburg’s volume in 2017 was still 1.07 million TEU below the 2007 volume. Among the losers, we also find Med hubs such as Gioia Tauro and north European ports that were hit hard by the rather recent reshuffles in container alliances (e.g. Thamesport and Zeebrugge). Constanza’s volume drop is mainly caused by the move of the transhipment hub function from the Black Sea to the Med. Taranto and Amsterdam are ports which used to play a role in the deepsea business in 2007, but in the meantime have completely lost that function.
Among the major winners we find the top two container ports in Europe, i.e. Rotterdam and Antwerp. They both recorded a TEU growth of 27 to 28% between 2007 and 2017, which translates into an absolute growth of 2.94 million TEU for Rotterdam and 2.27 million TEU for Antwerp. With a TEU growth of nearly 2.7 million, Cosco-owned Piraeus port saw the strongest traffic rise in the Med. Also major Med hubs such as Valencia, Algeciras and Marsaxlokk (Malta) saw a strong boost in TEU volumes. Newcomers Sines in Portugal and Gdansk in Poland each added about 1.5 million TEU to their volume base in the past ten years. Genoa, the number one Italian gateway port, and Bremerhaven complete the top 10 list of winners.
