German Ports

German Ports: crisis-proof and fit for the future

ClaireInstonereports…

In 2021, the Coronavirus pandemic posed great challenges for the port’ s industry, and German ports were no exception.Although world trade began to recover in 2021, the catch-up effects of various national economies and the Chinese “ zero-COVID policy ” continued to disrupt global supply chains which had previously run so smoothly. Goods either did not arrive at all or arrived too late and containers piled up at terminals because they could no longer immediately be forwarded to their final destination.

Despite the challenges, German ports performed successfully. “As logistics specialists, we are used to dealing with unusual challenges. Over the past two years, it was the pandemic that demanded much of us; now it is the war in Ukraine, which violates international law, ” states Angela Titzrath, Chairwoman of HHLA’ s Executive Board. Regardless of the crisis, the Port of Hamburg achieved impressive results for 2021 and is optimistic about the coming year as stated by Titzrath: “HHLA is robust and stable enough and in a sufficiently solid financial position to continue to reliably fulfil its supply mandate in difficult times. ”

Markus Bangen, CEO, duisport Group is also looking to the future with confidence: “At the moment, it’ s almost impossible to make any reliable forecasts about the rest of the 2022 financial year.The Ukraine war and the enormous hike in energy prices have severely clouded the mood in the German economy as a whole. Nevertheless, I’ m convinced that the duisport Group will emerge from this crisis in a strong position and that we ’ ve already taken the right steps in many areas to position ourselves as modern and fit for the future. ” duisport also saw a rise in throughput and a hike across many cargo sectors last year, as did the ports of Bremen, Bremerhaven and Rostock. Herein, I am delighted to bring readers an overview of the achievements and progress at Germany ’ s major ports across 2021.As for what 2022 will have in store remains to be seen.The existing uncertainty on the global markets has been amplified by the escalation in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Such activity will have unforeseeable consequences for the economy in Europe and beyond.Whatever happens, German ports have proved they are crisis-proof and fit for the future.

Hamburg

Despite the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, Hamburger Hafen and Logistik AG (HHLA) performed successfully in the 2021 financial year.

“Our results in the last financial year are an impressive demonstration.These results will strengthen us as we continue to implement our strategy, which is geared towards growth and sustainability. In order to meet the challenges of our customers, and of the future, we will position HHLA to become even more innovative, digital and sustainable, ” says Titzrath.

In the 2021 reporting year, there was a slight year-on-year increase in total container throughput at HHLA’ s container terminals of 2.5% to 6.943 million TEUs (the previous year garnered 6.776 million TEUs).At 6.328 million, throughput volume at the three Hamburg container terminals was up 2.2% on the previous year.The positive development of cargo volumes was largely due to the Far East and North and South America shipping regions.Throughput volumes at the three international container terminals in Odessa, Tallinn andTrieste rose 5.3% to 615,000TEUs. Container throughput at the international terminals therefore exceeded the pre-pandemic level of 2019 by 0.4%.

Meanwhile, rail continued to benefit more than road from the recovery in freight volume. Rail transport rose 12.8% year-on-year to 1.379 millionTEUs. In a persistently challenging market environment, road transport volumes of 312,000 TEUs were on a par with the previous year. Reflecting on more recent figures from Germany ’ s largest seaport by volume, we see that the first quarter of 2022 brought very different trends for cargo handling, and traffic.At 2.2 million TEUs, throughput was up 1.8%.Totalling 22.5 million tonnes, general cargo throughput in the first three months of the year rose by 0.6%. Down by 2.8%, total seaborne cargo handling at 31.2 million tonnes was slightly lower than in the same quarter of the previous year. The repercussions of the sanctions against Russia, only effective from March,were not yet apparent in all the handling segments for Germany ’ s biggest universal port in the first quarter.

“After a very good start in January, the start of the war in Ukraine led to an extension of EU sanctions in trade with Russia during the course of February. In the Port of Hamburg we then rapidly noticed a downturn in container traffic with Russian ports.That was caused primarily by the reactions of many shipping companies in ceasing to call at Russian ports. Imports from Russian ports of coal, along with other bulk cargoes such as oil products, continued without being affected, ” states Axel Mattern, CEO of Hamburg Marketing.

Mattern pointed out that in the first quarter, repercussions were already apparent in the general cargo sector, but that is meanwhile more obviously true in virtually all handling and industry segments. Railborne freight traffic again developed very well. During the first quarter, at 12 million tonnes the Port of Hamburg Railway handled 1.6% greater volume. At 0.7 million TEUs, 1.4% more containers were transported.

“The Port of Hamburg once again confirmed its capability as leading rail port.That was impressively underlined in January with record figures of 60,000 TEUs per week and 231 train moves per day.Against a background of especially high peak load at container terminals, and limitations in the rail network caused by storms, these records are noteworthy, ” explained Mattern. Going forward, in order to further increase productivity and expand capacity in the container and intermodal segments, investments at Group level are expected to be between EUR 300 million and EUR 350 million across this year.The Port Logistics subgroup will account for EUR 270 million to EUR 320 million of this amount.

Photo credit: HHM - Michael Lindner

Bremen/Bremerhaven

In 2021, the quays and terminals in Bremen and Bremerhaven handled 69.7 million tonnes of seaborne freight (up 4.8%).This marked a recovery from the downturn in seaborne freight throughput the previous year due to the pandemic, when the figure was 66.5 million tonnes. “The ports of Bremen were affected by the supply chain disruptions. Nevertheless, the ports of Bremen remained

fully functioning during the second year of the pandemic and despite the resulting difficult health and hygiene regulations.The port employees, the ships ’ crews and the port and logistics industry succeeded in upholding supplies to the German and European economies even during these difficult times. And despite Corona, we can actually report an improvement in throughput figures for the ports of Bremen, ” states Dr Claudia Schilling, Senator for Science and Ports.

Total throughput was slightly higher than the figure for 2019 (69.4 million tonnes). The provisional throughput figure for 2021 breaks down into 12.9 million tonnes of freight handled at the port facilities in Bremen-City (up 23.6%) and 56.8 million tonnes in Bremerhaven (a rise of 1.3%). Both port locations were back up to the throughput figures for the year 2019 again, with Bremen-City even reporting a slight increase.There was a significant year-on-year increase in the volume of freight handled at the ports of Bremen in 2021, with total throughput of 9.7 million tonnes (growth of 12.5%).

The positive trend for bulk freight (9.1 million tonnes, up 14.6%) and general cargo (3.7 million tonnes, up 52.9%) in 2021 meant a significant increase in total throughput, which amounted to 12.9 million tonnes at the port facilities in Bremen-City (plus 23.6%). General cargo throughput rose by 3.7% to just under 60 million tonnes.This growth in the figures for general cargo can be attributed to the sharp increase in the non-containerised segment, where throughput was up by 23.2% to almost 8.4 million tonnes.

However, there was also a slight jump of 1.1% in container throughput, which rose to 51.6 million tonnes. Expressed in standard containers, growth was far higher and rose by 5.2% to more than 5 millionTEUs.This also meant slight growth compared with the figure for 2019 (just under 4.9 million TEUs).

duisport Group

duisport Group overcame challenging times reporting strong annual figures for 2021. The Group continued to perform successfully in the second year of the Covid pandemic. Although the 2021 financial year was strongly shaped by the effects and restrictions surrounding the third and fourth waves of the pandemic as well as globally disrupted logistics chains and a massive shortage of raw materials and preliminary products, duisport’ s broadly positioned business model delivered a convincing performance with clearly noticeable resilience.Against this background, the increase in earnings of more than 33% with an increase in sales of almost 19% is all the more impressive. “We ’ ve held our course in stormy times, ” says Chief Executive Officer Markus Bangen, who took office back on August 1, 2021, and has since provided a great deal of internal and external impetus for the further development and modernisation of the Port of Duisburg.

In the 2021 financial year, container turnover rose by 2% to around 4.3 million TEUs, (up from 2020’ s total of 4.2 million). Last year, the duisport Group handled a total of 58.2 million tonnes of goods by ship, rail and truck. All the ports of Duisburg together handled a total of 111.1 million tonnes (previous year: 110.4 million tonnes). In the second year of the pandemic, duisport again increased its spending on property, plant and equipment and financial investments, investing a solid EUR 42 million (2020: EUR 38.6 million).

On top of this, EUR 14.1 million was invested in maintenance work on the infra- and superstructure of the Port of Duisburg.A total of EUR 56.6 million was thus invested in increasing performance at duisport in 2021.

In 2021, Duisburger Hafen AG acquired a shareholding in the Port of Trieste.This way, the duisport Group will strengthen its presence there and will benefit in future from the flow of goods from the Mediterranean region to Europe. “Our geographical location and connection in the middle of Europe is a unique selling point that we will continue to reinforce, ” confirms Dr. Carsten Hinne, primarily responsible for the expansion of the international network.

“Shareholdings such as the one in Trieste strengthen the Port of Duisburg ’ s function as a logistics hub. ” In recent months the port’ s focus has been on modernising infrastructure, investing massively in the renewal and new construction of roads, rails and bridges to make internal traffic and handling processes faster and more efficient.This applies not least to the connection of the future Duisburg Gateway Terminal (DGT) - the largest container terminal in the European hinterland, which will be operated on a completely climate-neutral basis. In more recent news, the port authorities of Duisburg and Rotterdam confirmed they have jointly signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) to renew and expand their cooperation agreements that date back to 2020. Besides existing agreements relating to the optimisation of logistical connections, the cooperation will be expanded to include initiatives in the area of digitisation and the energy transition. duisport and Rotterdam have been trading partners for a long time.This LOI is aimed at creating the most digital and most sustainable port-inland hub connection in the world by linking Duisburg ’ s ‘Rail Freight Data Hub’ initiative with Rotterdam ’ s ‘Rail Connected’ .The LOI also includes agreements on looking into the possibility of linking the port community systems Portbase (Rotterdam) to the RheinPorts Information System (Duisburg) and to learn from each other ’ s initiatives in the area of digital twin projects.

Rostock

Last year, 28.68 million tonnes were handled at the Port of Rostock which scored an increase of 14% - or 3.58 million tonnes - compared to 2020, notching up another record.The port state this result is remarkable due to the fact that all four handling divisions contributed to it and because it shows a considerable increase above the level of activity in 2019 a respectable 11.7% jump.The strongest growth was achieved in the handling of wheeled cargo in ferry and ro-ro traffic represented by a result of 18 million tonnes (+2.7 million tonnes or +18%).The steady development of the ferry and railway network over the last few years, by strengthening the existing ferry services and establishing a new ferry destination as well as several new railway destinations, is clearly paying off.

Gratifying growth rates were also achieved in intermodal transport and in container traffic which runs by rail between China and Europe and by ship between Kaliningrad and Rostock. The ferry terminal and ro-ro terminal contain eleven berths. Berth 64 is equipped for the clearance of railway carriages.The number of railway wagons ferried to and from Trelleborg continued to show a gratifying increase from 19,205 to 27,100 units (+41%) in 2021.

Rostock port is a major railway port on the German Baltic Sea coast and continues to grow in importance as a traditional railway port.Around 20% of all hinterland traffic to and from the port is carried by rail in the modal split.