Ukrainian seaports handled 135 million tons of cargo in 2018, which is 2.6 million tons more than they handled in 2017. Ukrainian seaports also handled 11,654 vessels in 2018, which are 370 or 3% fewer than they handled in 2017.

These are the final data provided by the Ukrainian Seaports Authority, the CFTS portal reports.

The leading seaports in terms of cargo handling volumes in 2018 were Yuzhny (42.7 million tons), Mykolaiv (29.2 million tons), Odesa (21.7 million tons), Chornomorsk (21.5 million tons), and Mariupol (5.9 million tons).

Transshipment of agricultural products, ore, metal products, and containers increased in 2018. These types of cargoes accounted for almost 80% of the total transshipment volume.

According to the Ukrainian Seaports Authority, agricultural goods were the largest in terms of transshipment volumes. Ukrainian seaports handled almost 52 million tons of grain and other agricultural products in 2018, an increase of 3.5% or 1.7 million tons compared with 2017. Ore was the second largest. Ukrainian seaports handled 28 million tons of ore, an increase of 2.2% or almost 600,000 tons compared with 2017. Metal products were the third largest at over 18 million tons, an increase of 8.5% or 1.26 million tons compared with 2017. Container cargoes were fourth position at over 846,000 TEU, an 18% increase compared with 2017.

Transshipment of export cargo totaled almost 100 million tons, a 0.5% increase compared with 2017. Increases in the volumes of export of the following cargo groups were recorded: agricultural products, petroleum products, oil, coal, ferrous metals, chemical and mineral fertilizers, containers, and large-capacity vehicles.

Imports of goods through Ukrainian seaports increased by 3.3 million tons or 16.5% to 23.7 million tons. Ore (7.6 million tons) and coal (5.7 million tons) accounted for more than 56% of imports. Imports of coke increased 4.3-fold to 485,000 tons and imports of chemical and mineral fertilizers increased almost three-fold to 361,000 tons.

Transshipment of transit cargoes reduced by 13.4% to 10.2 million tons in 2018, compared with 2017.

The Ministry of Infrastructure recently announced preliminary data for cargo transshipment by Ukrainian seaports in 2018. According to the data, shipments between Ukrainian seaports totaled 2.1 million tons, which is 14% (260,000 tons) more than the volume in 2017.

In addition, as the CFTS portal reported, Ukrainian seaports handled 515,500 passengers in 2018. This is 2.7 times more than the number of passengers they handled in 2017. the Odesa seaport accounted for most of the passengers (321,600) handled by Ukrainian seaports in 2018.