Rotterdam port cargo volume growth slows

Rotterdam, Europe's biggest port, reported on Thursday a slowdown in the growth of cargo volumes handled in the first half of the year to 1.1 percent from a 5-percent increase in the year ago period.
The port handled a total 186.6 million tonnes of cargo in January-June and attributed the slowdown to a reduction in imports of agricultural goods, ores and crude oil.
Rotterdam is Europe's main centre for shipments and storage of oilseeds, animal feeds and vegetable oils. It is also a key trading hub for the European oil industry and houses five oil refineries.
"We had a slow start of the year. The first quarter was weak and then volumes picked up a bit," the port's chief executive Hans Smits said in a statement.
He forecast a recovery in the second half of the year, which would lead to a rise of over 2 percent in volumes for 2006.
The amount of agricultural goods, such as grains, oilseeds and animal feeds, handled at Rotterdam fell 9 percent to 4.7 million tonnes in the first half of the year, the port said.
The fall was caused mainly by a drop in imports of soybeans as European processors switched to rapeseed that is widely used to produce biodiesel. A strike at the soybean terminal of US agribusiness giant ADM also contributed to the drop.
Cargo volumes of ores and scrap fell 3.2 percent to 19.8 million tonnes in the first half of the year due to a drop in imports, the port said.
Crude oil volumes also declined by 2.9 percent to 49.7 million tonnes as a result of 53 percent drop in outgoing cargo.
The port attributed the fall to the shutdown of Shell's Rotterdam-based Pernis refinery - Europe's biggest - for turnaround maintenance for nearly three months as well as maintenance at Shell's German refinery Wesseling.
In addition, Koch's Rotterdam-based refinery was unable to reach full production capacity due to some technical problems, the port's statement said.
Cargo volumes of oil products saw an increase of 6.8 percent to 22.1 million tonnes in the first half of the year mainly due to growing imports of gas oil from Russia and exports of petrol to Mexico, Britain and the United States, the port said.
Coal cargos continued to grow by 6 percent to 13.8 million tonnes in January-June because of strong demand in Germany.