CARGO throughput at the Port of Newcastle took a massive jump in the month of June with a total throughput of more than 15.76m tonnes, according to the latest trade statistics from the port. This was an increase of 12.9% on the previous month and 2.5% on June 2018. The month’s throughput eclipsed the previous high in January by 6.8%.
Breaking the figures down, the port handled 499,297 tonnes of imports, with the largest category being fuels (195,710), followed by alumina (124,000) and meals & grains (74,306 tonnes).
It comes as no surprise that coal was by far the port’s largest export for the month, with just shy of 14.7m tonnes being exported, or a whopping 96.2% of the port’s total monthly throughput by volume.
Despite total throughput being up on January, total trade value for the port failed to surpass January’s $2.05bn, coming in at $2.01bn. This is most likely due to the price of coal having dropped close to 25% since January.
Export destinations for Newcastle’s coal output included Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Caledonia and Taiwan.
Other significant exports from Newcastle included copper, zinc and lead ore concentrates (combined 31,421 tonnes) and ‘other trade’ which includes ammonia, ammonium nitrate, animal foods, coke products, scrap steel, vegetable oils and miscellaneous general cargo (totalling 24,692 tonnes).
There were 185 vessel visits to Newcastle throughout June, with 153 of these visits (or 83%) being coal vessels.
