MOSCOW (MRC) -- Shipments of chemicals through the port of Antwerp, Belgium, declined 8.9% in 2020 compared to 2019, although no full-year chemical volumes total has been made available, said Chemweek.
Annual liquid bulk volumes declined by 4.2% in total year on year (YOY) to 69 million metric tons (MMt) in 2020, with crude oil shipments plummeting 60% YOY due to reduced refining activities, says Port of Antwerp. Throughput of oil derivatives, however, recovered with growth of 3.4% despite an initial fall in demand due to the coronavirus pandemic and the sharp drop in oil prices, it says. Fertilizer shipments also declined YOY, but no specific volume figure was given.
The port’s overall throughput last year totaled 230.8 MMt of cargo, a fall of 3.1% compared with 2019, with the relatively small decline due largely to “buoyant container throughput rates,” which set a new record, it says. Container throughput surpassed the 12 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) mark for the first time ever in 2020, totaling 139 MMt, equating to growth of 1.3% compared with 2019, it says.
"We were caught up in a storm in 2020, but we stayed upright. The port has even set another record in container throughput. This enabled us to limit the damage due to losses in other segments and to present better figures than other ports,” says Jacques Vandermeiren, Port of Antwerp’s CEO. Vandermeiren remains “convinced” that the ports ongoing projects, such as its carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction project Antwerp, a recently formed hydrogen coalition, and the development of the new NextGen District will be “major game changers within the next 10 years."
We remind that Russia's output of chemical products rose in November 2020 by 9.5% year on year. At the same time, production of basic chemicals increased in the first eleven months of 2020 by 6.6% year on year, according to Rosstat's data. According to the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation, polymers in primary form accounted for the greatest increase in the January-November 2020 output. November production of polymers in primary form rose to 896,000 tonnes from 852,000 tonnes in October. Overall output of polymers in primary form totalled 9,240,000 tonnes over the stated period, up by 17.1% year on year.
MRC