Black Sea container terminals in Ukraine, Romania, Russia, Georgia and Bulgaria handled a total of 2,460,028 TEU in 2016.
Laden containers contributed 1,785,618 TEU to the total, representing year-on-year growth of 9.6 per cent, reported Hellenic Shipping News, Piraeus, Greece.
Laden container volume increased in all countries in the Black Sea region except Georgia, which suffered a drop of 12.09 per cent compared to 2015. Last year Ukraine volumes were up 30.6 per cent, Romania by 4.7 per cent, Russia by 7.5 per cent and Bulgaria by 4.6 per cent.
During this period, 51.37 per cent of laden containers were imported, with 48.6 per cent of the volume being exported. It is estimated that the laden container share was 72.59 per cent and empty container share was 27.41 per cent.
Ukraine and Russia saw their export volumes rise 29.64 per cent and 24.01 per cent respectively. Romania's laden export volumes fell by 0.1 per cent, while Bulgaria's volume was up 0.3 per cent. Georgia laden export volume fell by 14.93 per cent.
Imports to the region increased 6.95 per cent, mainly because of Ukrainian import volume growth of 31.93 per cent. In 2016 import volume increased in all countries of the region except Russia, down 1.57 per cent and Georgia, down 11.56 per cent. Ukraine's volume of laden imports rose by 31.93 per cent.
The top-five container terminals of the region in 2016 changed their positions in total volume handled: DPW (Constanta, Romania) still was on the first place, HPC Ukraine (Odessa, Ukraine) moved from third to second place, APMT Poti (Georgia) moved from second place to third, NLE (Novorossiysk, Russia) moved from the fourth to fifth place, and NUTEP (Novorossiysk, Russia) moved from fifth to fourth place.
As for the leading carriers of the region, there were no changes 'Maersk remained the leader, followed by MSC, CMA CGM, ARKAS and Zim. Combined these carriers controlled 73.38 per cent of this market.