However, cargo traffic declined by 3.7 percent from 2011.
“The cargo turnover in 2012, at 35.24 million tons, was the second largest full-year handling result in the history of the port of Klaipėda,” the port’s authority said.
Last year, the port reloaded 381,280 TEUs, down 0.2 percent from 2011, the authority said in a report adding that the decline resulted from a higher comparative base of the previous year, which was inflated by large imports of cars from the US before the increase of import duties in Belarus.
“With the new regime in place, it is natural that the handling of containers in the port of Klaipėda has declined after a surge in 2011,” the report says.
The reloading of fertilizers at the port last year declined by 16.2 percent, year-on-year, to 9.73 million tons, and the handling of petroleum products went down by 9.6 percent, to 8.26 million litas, mostly due to the turnaround at Orlen Lietuva, the country’s sole refinery, last spring.
Ro-ro cargo handling shrank by 1.5 percent, to 4.84 million tons.
In 2011, cargo handling at the port rose by 16.9 percent from 2010.
