The results mark a continuation of a trend reported in the port's full year 2013 results, whereby liquid cargo volumes are falling but offset by a rise in dry bulk throughput. For the first half of 2014, dry bulk grew 8.8% to 45.8m tonnes while total liquid bulk cargoes fell 5.2% to 99m tonnes.
Container throughput was up 1.9% to 6m teu, while general cargo including ro-ro jumped 12.6% to 12.8m tonnes.
Revenues at Rotterdam rose by EUR8.6m to EUR324m, while expenses fell by EUR10m to EUR101m. The port's recent heavy investment in Maasvlakte 2 has started to ease; last year over EUR100m of the port's EUR263m investments were made in the Maasvlakte 2 project alone, a project total that is forecast to be halved this year, as total investments fall to EUR203m.
The port continues to work towards its aim of becoming a crude oil hub, a project that has seen some results as crude oil throughput rose 3.3%. Rotterdam is also working towards realising an LNG break bulk terminal at the port to facilitate an uptake in the use of LNG as a transport fuel.
The Port Authority has forecast an overall throughput increase of 1% for the full year 2014.
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