In the Port of Hamburg, a lot of business is done with Russia.
Photo: dpa/Marcus Brandt
Electricity generation from hard coal increased by 26.7 percent last year. According to the Association of German Coal Importers, the use of hard coal in the power plants was favored by the extreme rise in the price of natural gas. Almost two thirds of the steam coal comes from Russia. This coal is considered to be of particularly high quality. The port of Hamburg, one of the central transhipment points for coal and wood from Russia, also benefits from this.
Hamburg entered into a twinning with the Russian city of St. Petersburg back in 1957, when the metropolis was still called Leningrad. The political situation was tense at the time. Since then, and even more so following the end of the Soviet Union, the port of Hamburg has been the “gateway to the world”, and has always been the most important port on the North Sea for Russia. With 350,000 containers handled, the country ranks fourth for the port on the Elbe, behind China, the USA and Singapore, but ahead of Great Britain, Poland and South Korea. However, bulk goods such as coal and wood are more important for the port. “We are watching everything with great concern,” said the annual press conference of Port of Hamburg Marketing (HHM), which took place online on Monday.
“Currently it is not possible to say to what extent the sanctions once morest Russia will affect throughput development,” said HHM board member Axel Mattern. A realistic forecast for the current year cannot be given at this point in time, because the corona pandemic might continue to influence foreign trade. And this, in turn, would affect turnover figures.
The turnover with Russia had already halved following the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Now it’s not just regarding sanctions, but also regarding the question of what else Russia can afford financially in the future. Above all, Russia procures machine components, fruit and technical consumer goods via Hamburg.
The Ukraine war is also causing concern elsewhere. Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA) accounts for two thirds of port handling. However, the partially state-owned HHLA also has terminals in Estonia, Italy and the Ukraine. The company has operated a terminal in the Ukrainian port city of Odessa on the Black Sea since 2001. According to the company, around 150 million euros have already been invested there.
The port in Odessa was closed by the Ukrainian authorities. One is now very worried regarding the employees, said HHLA CEO Angela Titzrath. The last employees cleared the port on Thursday. “Before, they reliably handled two ships that were then able to leave the port,” said Titzrath. The 480 employees were paid a monthly salary in advance. “In this special situation, they can stock up on essential goods accordingly.” A crisis management team was formed on site, which is “closely coordinated” with the responsible managing director Philip Sweens in Hamburg. However, the substance of HHLA as a group is not at risk.
Russian ships have already been turned away in France and Great Britain. In Hamburg, those responsible are still waiting for the exact sanctions regulations. In any case, the number of ships flying the Russian flag is minimal, but many freighters or parts of the cargo belong to Russians, which might be on the European Commission’s black list. Russians (and Ukrainians) are more important for seafaring itself. According to the International Chamber of Shipping shipowners’ association, the two countries provide around 15 percent of all employees on board.
After a “strong January” with an increase in throughput of more than eight percent compared to the same month last year, Europe’s third largest port, like almost all German seaports, wanted to pick up speed once more. After last year’s slump caused by the corona pandemic, seaborne cargo handling developed more positively than expected in 2021. Seaborne cargo handling was better at 128.7 million tons, an increase of around two percent. Container handling reached 8.7 million TEU (20-foot standard container), an increase of 2.2 percent.
Goods transport by rail provided a record result. The Hamburg port railway was able to transport 2.8 million TEU last year. This is an increase of eight percent compared to the year before last. “Hamburg is impressively expanding its leading position as the world’s largest railway port,” said Mattern happily. In addition to sea transport, more and more “time-critical goods” are transported by rail between China and Hamburg. Hamburg sees itself as the leading start and end point on the »New Silk Road«. Around 160,000 TEU were transported by rail between Hamburg and more than 25 destinations in China last year, a strong increase of 51 percent.
However, the Ukraine war also clouds the picture here, because the standard route runs via Moscow and Novosibirsk. For the year 2022, the marketing organization of the Port of Hamburg hopes for an “overall stable development” in handling.