Definition
Liquid bulk is liquid cargo carried unpackaged, directly in the ship’s tanks: crude oil, diesel, petrol, natural gas, chemicals, oils or biofuels.
It is loaded and unloaded through pipelines, at jetties or single buoy moorings connected to refineries, regasification plants or storage terminals. It is one of the three cargo types into which the statistics divide goods, together with dry bulk and general cargo.
Its volume depends on energy: on refinery activity, on fuel demand and on gas imports. That is why ports with a refinery or a regasification plant nearby come first in these statistics, and their figures move with prices and with the plants’ maintenance shutdowns.
The figure · August 2026
Year to date · January–August 2026
123.2 million tonnes
August 2026 only
16.1 million tonnes
First port
19.5 million tonnes
Liquid bulk in Spanish ports in 2026
Spanish ports handled 123.2 million tonnes of liquid bulk traffic in the year to August 2026, 4.2% more than in the same period of 2025. In August alone, the figure was 16.1 million tonnes, 8% more than in August 2025.
The full ranking, the trend and the table are in the indicator Liquid bulk in Spanish ports. To explore the data in detail, see PortStats · traffic by type of cargo, annual series.