Stevedore Eurogate’s 2009 Traffic Drops 12.3 Percent

Eurogate, Europe's biggest container stevedore, said traffic at its 10 container terminals in the North Sea and the Mediterranean declined 12.3 percent in 2009 from a year ago, but it will still book a profit for the year.

The Bremen-based group's overall traffic slipped to 12.5 million 20-foot equivalent units from a record 14.2 million TEUs in 2008, with Germany posting the steepest falls while the Italian terminals kept the decline under 10 percent.

Traffic slumped 17.5 percent at Eurogate's three Bremerhaven terminals to 4.54 million TEUs and Hamburg volume was 20.5 percent lower at 2.14 million TEUs.

Eurogate's 33.4 percent-owned Italian unit, Contship Italia, saw volume shrink 9.9 percent to 5.1 million TEUs, thanks to a strong performance by the Cagliari International Container Terminal in Sardinia.

The Lisbon terminal handled just under 205,000 TEUs, down 13.1 percent from 235,356 TEUs in 2008.

Cargo volume at the Tangier, Morocco, facility surged nearly six-fold to 435,575 TEUs from 64,178 TEUs in the previous year.

Eurogate performed better than its main German rival, HHLA of Hamburg, which earlier this week reported 2009 volume down a third at 4.9 million TEUs from a record 7.3 million TEUs in the previous year.

"The economic crisis has left its mark. Nevertheless, we will post a positive result for 2009," said Thomas Eckelmann, chairman of the Eurogate group management board.

"However, it will be some years before we can again reach the record level of 2008," Eckelmann said. He did not give details of results for 2009 which will be published in April.

Eckelmann urged the German federal and local governments to speed up infrastructure work, particularly the deepening of the Elbe and Weser rivers.

"Unless our terminals are unrestrictedly accessible around the clock, our shipping lines will be forced -- however high our [cargo] handling quality -- to dock their giant container ships at other ports," Eckelmann said.

Eurogate, a joint venture between Bremen's BLG and Hamburg's Eurokai, is currently building a 3 million TEU-a-year deepwater container terminal at the north German port of Wilhelmshaven.

Contact Bruce Barnard at brucebarnard47@hotmail.com.