The Port of Algeciras Bay continues to lead the Spanish port network, after reaching a total throughput return of 74.8 million tonnes for 2008. This figure is a slight increase of 0.34 percent over the previous year, due to the favourable trend in containerised cargo and liquid bulks.
Of the total throughput, 42.7 million tonnes were recorded under containerised cargo, which reported a growth of 0.8 percent, whereas container throughput remained stable at 3,324,310TEU, a fall of 2.6 percent, despite import containers increasing by more than four percent.
Another sizeable part of total throughput corresponded to liquid bulk, up five percent and reaching 20.5 million tonnes. The year closed with rising results in ship supplies, with 3.2 million tonnes of products supplied.
The greatest drop in activity was witnessed in solid bulk, which saw a 41 percent drop to 1.6 million tonnes. The Port of Algerciras Bay said that this was fundamentally due to a fall in coal imports because of the shutdown of the Ios Barrios power station, currently undergoing transformation.