A total of 25.1 million tonnes of goods passed the edge of the quay at Rostock Overseas port in 2020. This means a slight decrease by 600,000 tonnes or two percent compared to the result of the previous year. Declines in ferry and roro traffic, for instance in paper and liquid goods handling, were almost completely made up for by increases in dry bulk goods. Despite the constraints and restrictions at many production companies and in many supply chains which were caused by the pandemic in the course of 2020 the well-balanced business model of the port has once again produced a very high handling result which is close to that of the previous year.
The ferry terminal contains five berths. Berth 64 is equipped for the clearance of railway carriages. The number of railway wagons ferried to and from Trelleborg continued to show a gratifying increase from 18,388 to 19,205 units (+4 %). Rostock Overseas port is a major railway port on the German Baltic Sea coast. Around 20 % of all hinterland traffic to and from our port is carried by rail in the modal split. An overpass leads directly from the ferry terminal to the motorway A19/A20.
The roro terminal with four berths and the terminal for combined cargo traffic in the immediate vicinity, the port offers the best handling conditions for both liner and tramp shipping.
Upgrading and New Construction
Upgrading and New Consruction
Berths 62, 63 and 50
In order to be able to handle ships with a length up to 220 or 250 meters, respectively, in the ferry and roro division, berths 62 and 63 were modified.
By renewing the transverse quay and the construction of two 37 meter wide ramps at port basin A in the area of berth 50 it is possible for roro vessels with a length up to 250 meters to berth, load and unload here.
Handling results Ferry- and RoRo-goods 2020
15.3 Mio t
cargo handling
The result in wheeled cargo, i.e. ferry and roro-goods, declined in 2020. All told the volume went down by 900,000 tonnes to 15.3 million tonnes (-6 %).
Thus the share of wheeled cargo in the total handling at Rostock Overseas port was 61 percent last year.
Handling results trucks, trailer 2020
126,183
truck units
The number of truck units carried on the ferry and roro-connections to and from northern Europe went down slightly from 379,812 in 2019 to 367,927 last year.
That is a minus of 3 percent. By contrast the number of trailers handled even increased from 125,306 to 126,183 last year.
Handling results Ferry passengers 2020
41 respectively 48 percent
decrease
The coronavirus pandemic caused a strong decline of 41 percent in the number of cars and mobile homes carried, to 327,000.
Only a little more than half the number of passengers compared to the previous year were counted on the ferry lines to northern Europe, at 1.37 million.
Handling results Paper and Cellulose 2020
17 percent
less than 2019
625,000 tonnes of paper and cellulose were handled at the overseas port in 2020, which was 110,000 tonnes less than in the previous year.
Handling results Railway wagons 2020
4 percent
increase
The number of railway wagons ferried to and from Trelleborg continued to show a gratifying increase from 18,388 to 19,205 units (+4 %). Rostock Overseas port is a major railway port on the German Baltic Sea coast. Around 20 % of all hinterland traffic to and from our port is carried by rail in the modal split.
The efficient handling terminal for rail, road and seaborne cargo covers an area of approx. 70,000 square metres.
Five tracks will be served by two gantry cranes able to drive curves. So the port of Rostock is prepared for further increases in the amounts of wheeled cargo.
Handling of intermodal load units in Intermodal Transport at Rostock Overseas port increased impressively to 94,800 units (plus 7 percent) in 2020. Currently there are 35 intermodal trains operating weekly to and from Verona (18) in Italy, Brno (3) in the Czech Republic, Bratislava (2) in Slovakia, Dresden (5, formerly Lovosice), Wuppertal (2) and Halle (1) in Germany, Bettembourg (3) in Luxemburg as well as Curtici (1) in Romania.
Another gratifying point is the trend on the Silk Road corridor which has seen continuous growth in its first year and offers further potential for rail freight transport. Thus the Silk Road services have also contributed to the increases in intermodal traffic volume. Additional cargo volume to and from China via Rostock stabilise existing and enable new intermodal transport services. Via Rostock as a hub the China traffic is currently connected, for instance, to the Ruhr area, the Netherlands, northern Europe, Italy and the Czech Republic.
Handling results Intermodal Transport 2020
7 percent
increase
Handling of intermodal load units in Intermodal Transport at Rostock Overseas port increased impressively to 94,800 units (plus 7 percent) in 2020.
Up to 20,000 tons of coal can be discharged daily at berths 23 and 24. The rebuilding of berth 23, which is 270 metres long, was largely completed by the end of 2019. During the first six months of 2020, further work was done on paving of surfaces and railway track construction as well as dredging to a water depth of 14.50 metres. In the course of the building work the load-bearing capacity of the quay surface is increased from two to five tonnes per square meter. In the meantime the new building and dredging at neighbouring berth 24 has been put out to EU-wide tender. Bridge cranes are used for unloading sea gravel, limestone and crushed stone at berth 22. In the middle of pier III a storage area with a capacity of 300,000 tons of anthracite coal exists. Conveyor belts carry the coal to the adjacent 500 MW hard coal-fired power station. A processing facility for sea gravel and storage facilities for building materials, agricultural products, fertilizer and other bulk goods are located at berth 21, which is equipped with a harbour mobile crane with a lifting capacity of up to 84 tons.
The port has an open storage capacity of 420,000 m² as well as a covered storage capacity of 55,000 m² available for bulk goods.
In addition to the handling of coal, building materials, fertiliser and grain are among the most important bulk cargo handled in the Port of Rostock.
Handling results Dry Bulk 2020
14 percent
increase
Dry bulk handling was an enormous 14 percent above the level of the previous year with a total of 6.75 million tonnes handled. Especially the export of wheat showed an increase from 1.7 to 2.7 million tonnes.
General Cargo
Pier II is the heart of general cargo handling. Here are mainly metals, forest products and project cargo as well as container handled. But Pier II is mainly characterized by the transshipment of wind turbines.
Cranes with a lifting capacity of up to 100 tonnnes ensure the fast handling of goods. Since mid-2019, it is possible to load goods of up to almost 300 tonnes by using two new mobile harbour cranes in tandem. Furthermore, there are two cranes available for loading and unloading at berth 16, which can be equipped with hooks or grapples. Here, among other things, sheet metal and pipes for EEW Special Pipe Construction GmbH are handled.
Three solid sheds, each 360 meters long, with land and water-side track and road connections, are used for transhipment and storage. A total of 600,000 square meters of open storage and 120,000 square meters of covered storage for general cargo are available at the Rostock seaport.
High & Heavy
With berths 10, 15 and 25, the port offers three berths for the handling of particularly large and heavy goods. At berth 15, the heavy-duty areas are upgraded by ROSTOCK PORT GmbH. This is where a special quay with a heavy-duty rail track was built for a Liebherr crane with a lifting capacity of up to 1,600 tonnes, which put into Operation mid of 2019. This will improve the possibilities for handling extremely heavy project cargo as well as the attractiveness of the location for further company relocations for the production and assembly of heavy cargo.
Container
We have been able to record a very positive trend in container handling. This growth is in particular driven by the containers carried on the Silk Road between China and Europe by rail and by ship between Kaliningrad and Rostock. This prevents long waiting times at the border between Belarus and Poland and thus assures a high reliability and short transportation times for the goods, most of which are capital-intensive.
While this traffic started with one train per week from Xi’an in April 2020 it has been running in both directions since the middle of last year. With every container vessel arriving in port, up to five trains are currently loaded at the General Cargo Terminal. In this traffic Rostock Overseas port acts not just as a place of transhipment, but also as a collecting and distribution centre. All in all 23 countries are being served at the European end so far, with Italy and northern Europe representing the main source and destination points of these established regular services.
Via Rostock as a hub the China traffic is currently connected, for instance, to the Ruhr area, the Netherlands, northern Europe, Italy and the Czech Republic.
Handling results General Cargo / High & Heavy 2020
620,000 t
General Cargo / High & Heavy
Handling of high-value-added general cargo was significantly above the level of the previous year at 620,000 tonnes (+9 %). While the loading of pipes and wind power plants increased and the handling of crane facilities remained on the level of the previous year, the amounts of sheet metal and zinc handled went down.
The oil harbour possesses a tank store with a capacity of 700,000 cubic meters available for the storage and throughput of mineral oils such as heating oil, diesel and motor fuel. Crude oil, liquid fertiliser and other liquids are handled here as well.
The berths at the oil harbour can accommodate 6 tankers with up to 100,000 tonnes and has a handling capacity of up to 6,000 tonnes per hour. The handling of liquids occurs by means of tank car, pipelines (Schwedt, Böhlen) and by tank truck.
Großtanklager Ölhafen Rostock GmbH, a subsidiary of Eurports Germany GmbH, is the operator of the oil harbour and provides services for all mineral oil companies using the Port of Rostock.
The oil harbour is also the location of a biodiesel plant with an annual capacity of 200,000 tonnes of biodiesel and approx. 25,000 tonnes of raw glycerine in feeding stuff quality.
Handling results Liquid Cargo 2020
19 percent below previous year
but distortion of the actually positive result
At 2.45 million tonnes handling of liquid goods was about 560,000 tonnes or 19 percent below the level of previous year. The really quite positive handling result is however somewhat distorted by high crude oil imports of nearly a million tonnes during the first half of 2019 caused by pipeline problems. In 2020 more rapeseed oil, biodiesel, fuel oil and naphtha were handled than in 2019.
