Fruit pushes up PE volumes

BOTH CONTAINER and bulk traffic through Port Elizabeth harbour showed healthy growth during March, bringing the total tonnage handled by the port to 450748 tons for the month.
This is 16% more than during the same period last year and 20% up on February's 374690 tons.
Port Elizabeth handled 16196 TEUs (six metre equivalent containers) during March - an 18% increase on February's 15143 and 7% more than during the same period last year.
Altogether 182138 tons of bulk cargo (manganese ore) was exported in March.
This is 33% up on the previous month's 137360 tons.
The strong growth in manganese exports - up 17% on last March - is due to continued strong international demand.
The total general cargo handled by the port in March was 30216 tons, or 54% more than February's 19590 tons.
The reason for this increase is the fruit season which has started and a scrap vessel which called in the port towards the end of March, says Portnet's Lize Hayward.
However, this figure is 19% down on the same period last year.
The split of the various cargoes for March is, bulk cargo (manganese ore) 40% breakbulk 7% and container 53%.