Dry bulk handled by Irish ports drops by almost a fifth in first quarter

The amount of dry bulk goods handled by the State’s ports in the first quarter of 2023 was down by almost a fifth on the same period last year.

Port Traffic results for the first quarter of 2023, published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) on Wednesday, show that Irish ports handled 11.9 million tonnes of goods in the first quarter, a decrease of 6 per cent on the first quarter of 2022.

Decreases were recorded in the tonnage of goods handled across almost all categories, with the most significant decrease of 19 per cent recorded for the amount of dry bulk in the first quarter (down from 3.8 million tonnes to 3.1 million tonnes).

Dry bulk is any material, other than a liquid or gas, that is transported in a loose form without any packaging. It includes raw materials such as grain, metals, sand or coal.

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The total number of vessels arriving into the seven main ports in the Republic (Bantry, Cork, Drogheda, Dublin, Rosslare, Shannon and Waterford) during the first quarter of 2023 also decreased, down 5 per cent compared with the same period in 2022.

Goods forwarded from Irish ports amounted to nearly 4 million tonnes in the first three months of 2023, while a total of 7.9 million tonnes of goods were received.

The biggest proportion of goods passing through Irish ports in the first quarter went through Dublin Port, which accounted for more than half (51 per cent) of the total tonnage of goods handled. Meanwhile 18 per cent of goods were handled by the Port of Cork, and 17 per cent of tonnage passed through Shannon Foynes Port.

There was also a decrease in the number of vessels that arrived into the seven main Irish ports, with 2,612 vessels arriving in the first quarter of this year, down from 2,746 over the same period in 2022, and 2,833 the year previously.

The EU was the largest region of trade with ports in the Republic in the first quarter of this year, accounting for 42 per cent of the total tonnage of goods handled in the seven main ports here. This was closely followed by the trade region of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, with accounted for 37 per cent of the total tonnage of goods handled.