Global Ports Investments PLC has announced its operational results for Q4 2022 and FY 2022.
On the back of significant reduction of vessel calls of key container shipping lines to the ports of Russia, both the Russian container market in the Baltic basin and the Group’s terminals located therein experienced severe decline in container, cars and ro-ro throughput in Q4 2022 and FY 2022, the Group said in a statement. At the same time, container throughput in the Far Eastern basin and at VSC, the Group’s terminal in Far East, increased driven by a rebuilding of supply chains from European to Asian routes.
In 2022, the Group’s Consolidated Marine Container Throughput declined 37.1% year-on-year to 992 thousand TEU (Q4 22: 179 thousand TEU or a decline of 53.6% year-on-year) due to the reasons described above.
Container throughput at VSC increased in 2022 by 20.1% year-on-year to 624 thousand TEU (Q4 22: 167 thousand TEU or growth of 31.6% year-on-year) posting a record volume in terminal’s history driven by high demand in the region as well as Group’s effort to increase operational efficiency of the terminal and investments in its infrastructure and equipment.
The Group’s Consolidated Bulk Throughput increased by 13.7% year-on-year to 3.6 mn tons in 2022 (Q4 22: 1.3 nm tons or growth of 62.3% year-on-year) as results of the Group’s successful efforts to use available container capacity and terminals’ infrastructure to attract non-container business.
“The market outlook for 2023 remains uncertain. Although we see our customers’ growing interest in container vessel calls in the Baltic basin, we do not see ground to expect market recovery to 2021 volumes in the region in 2023. The Far Eastern market is experiencing high demand which might exceed capacity of container terminals and the supporting infrastructure in the region driving the Group’s intention to continue further development of VSC. In the Baltic region the Group is focusing on the utilisation of its terminals with non-containerised cargoes as well as on cost management,” the Group said.
Photo: Global Ports