CARGO throughput at the Port of Newcastle for January was down slightly month-to-month and year-to-year hit according to the latest available trade statistics from the port.
Total throughput at the port in January totalled almost 14.7 million tonnes, a 6% decrease from December 2020’s figures and 2% down on January 2020.
Breaking January’s throughput down, the port handled 425,682 tonnes of imports, with the largest category being fuels (185,372 tonnes), followed by alumina (97,500 tonnes) and fertiliser (58,338 tonnes).
It should come as no surprise that coal was by far the port’s largest commodity trade for the month, making up 95% of the port’s total monthly throughput by volume and 68% of the port’s total trade value for the month ($AU $2128m). A total of 13.9m tonnes of coal were exported, which was down 7% on December’s total of 14.9 million tonnes.
Destinations for Newcastle’s coal output included Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Caledonia, Taiwan, Singapore and Vietnam.
Other exports of note included wheat (238,394 tonnes) and other trade (29,820 tonnes). According to the report, other trade is said to consist of ammonia, ammonium nitrate, animal foods, coke products, scrap steel, vegetable oils and miscellaneous general cargo.
There were 197 vessel visits to Newcastle throughout January, with 152 of these visits (or 77%) being coal vessels. The remaining 45 vessels to call at the port were non-coal vessels, one of which was a cruise vessel.
