The latest statistics on the activity at the Port of Beirut show an annual decrease of 15.03% in the revenues of the Port of Beirut (PoB) to $6.40M by October 2021, compared to last year’s $7.54M. We note that no later data on revenue is available as per Port of Beirut statistics.
Accordingly, total container activity including transshipment (TEU+TS) decreased by a yearly 16.67% to stand at 54,237 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU), with container activity (TEU) alone decreased by 10.62% year-on-year (YOY) to 45,001 TEU by February 2022. In its turn, transshipment activity (TS) also decreased by 37.32% YOY to 9,236 TEU over the same period.
In more details, the transshipment volume of CMA CGM one of the two major shipping lines operating at the Port of Beirut decreased by 31.57% YOY to 7,692 TEU in February 2022. Also transshipment volume of MSC decreased by 43.5% YOY to 1,143 TEU in February 2022. In addition, the local volume of CMA CGM decreased remarkably by 30.13% to reach 12,181 TEU, while the local volume of MSC increased by 32.53% to stand at 12,535 TEU for the month of February 2022.
It is worth mentioning that on February 17, 2022, the CMA CGM Group was granted the concession of the Beirut Port container terminal with a budget plan of USD 33M. The operations began in March 2022 by CMA Terminals, for a period of 10 years, with a target of 1.4 million TEUs. The mentioned program aims to rebuild and renovate the terminal through (1) a complete infrastructure upgrade, (2) the construction of a new technical facility for maintenance and spare parts storage, (3) a digital transformation of the terminal, and (4) environmental performance improvements. However, we expect that the activity at Port of Beirut will further decrease due to increasing fuel prices worldwide thus reducing global economic activity.
Yearly total container activity including transshipment in twenty-foot in February
Source: PoB, BLOMINVEST
By: Stephanie Aoun