Eurogate Container Terminal Wilhelmshaven recorded a second consecutive year of double-digit growth, having handled 15.1% more containers in 2017, according to statistics released by the Eurogate Group.

Partly due to the reshuffling of the global shipping alliances, monthly handling volumes at the terminal doubled from May 2017 onwards.

Overall, container volumes across all 12 of Eurogate’s terminals came to 14.4.million TEUs, a year-on-year decrease of 1.4%. The volume of intermodal container grew by 5.2% to over 1.0 million TEUs.

Bremerhaven posted an increase of 0.9% to 5.5 million TEUs, while Eurogate Container Terminal Hamburg registered a drop of 25.6% to just below 1.7 million TEUs. This was because of the alliance restructuring as well as the bankruptcy of Hanjin.

Eurogate’s new facility in Limassol handled approximately 345,000 TEUs in its first year of operation.

“On balance, the results generated by the container terminals will be improved in comparison to the previous year, which in light of the slight downturn that the overall trend in container turnover is facing, is pleasant,” said Michael Blach, chairman of the Eurogate Group management board. “Bremerhaven and Wilhelmshaven certainly benefited from the realignment of the shipping alliances. Although 2017 was a good year, the year-end results have shown that it has become generally more difficult to generate sustained positive earnings and defend our market position.”