Port of Antwerp’s 1st quarter box volumes up 9%

Port of Antwerp’s 1st quarter box volumes up 9%    The port of Antwerp handled 1.66 million TEUs during the first quarter of 2006, up 9.3 percent compared to the same period in 2005.
   The increase was helped by July’s opening of the first facilities at the new Deurganck tidal dock. When fully completed the terminal will feature 5,190 meters of 30-meter-high quay wall and an annual capacity of 5.5 million TEUs.
   The Belgian port handled 19.3 million tons of containerized goods in the three-month period, an increase of 9.1 percent.
   Conventional or breakbulk freight was down 3.8 percent to 4.4 million tons. Roll-on/roll-off traffic dropped 3 percent to 931,625 tons.
   Antwerp’s total port volume for the quarter, including general cargo, ro/ro shipments and bulk, was just less than 40 million tons, an increase of 1.8 percent over the first quarter 2005.
   The number of ships calling at Antwerp between January and the end of March was up marginally by 0.5 percent to 3,779.