Container traffic at Irish ports falls for first time in 10 years

CONTAINER traffic through Irish ports has fallen for the first time in 10 years.

The continuing fallout from the global credit crunch and the strength of the euro against other currencies have contributed to a fall in container traffic through Irish ports in the first half of this year — the first drop in such business recorded in over 10 years.

New figures, published yesterday by the Irish Maritime Development Office (IMDO), show that roll-on/roll-off container volumes fell by 4% in the first six months of the year, compared to the same period last year.

Lift-on/lift-off volumes were down by 3% on the same period and bulk volumes, mainly affected by the falloff in demand for construction-related imports of steel, cement, timber and other building materials, fell by 8%.

The shipping lines servicing the Irish market have also been faced with the challenge of declining volumes and rapidly rising fuel prices — which have increased by 105%between June last year and June this year.

“A number of operators have taken some corrective measures to offset the short change in demand in the market and rising fuel prices, including reducing speed and frequency while some operators have opted to replace twoor more smaller vessels with one larger more efficient vessel. “The current drop in global oil prices will provide some respite for operators,” the IMDO said yesterday.

In addition, oil dropped to a price of just above $101 per barrel, yesterday, which represented its lowest price since last April.

“The year began with a continuation of the deterioration experienced in export market conditions from the latter half of 2007. However, the traffic data for the second quarter of this year has indicated no further fall in export volumes with growth remaining static for this period,” yesterday’s update added.