General cargo in Spanish ports in 2016: the year in review

Spanish ports handled 236 million tonnes of general cargo traffic in 2016, 5.2% more than in 2015 (11.6 million more). This is the year-end balance according to Puertos del Estado’s monthly statistics, with December data for the 28 port authorities.

The high point of the 2012–2025 series is 2025, with 278.8 million tonnes: 2016 was 15.4% below it and ranks 10th of the 14 years with data. At the end of 2016 it was the highest figure in the series, which starts in 2012; it was later exceeded in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.

In the 2016 ranking, the ports moving up on 2015 are Bahía de Algeciras (from 2nd to 1st); those moving down are Valencia (from 1st to 2nd).

Of which, containerised cargo: 168.3 million tonnes in 2016, 5.7% more than in 2015. Bahía de Algeciras ranks first on this measure, with 60.2 million tonnes.

Bahía de Algeciras ranks first among port authorities with 67.8 million tonnes in 2016 (8.5% more than in 2015). It is followed by Valencia (64.7 million) and Barcelona (31.7 million). Together, the three account for 69.5% of the total.

The largest increases were recorded by Castellón (+10.6%), Baleares (+9.5%) and Bahía de Algeciras (+8.5%); the steepest falls by Las Palmas (−4.1%), Vigo (−3.1%) and Bilbao (−1.8%). The comparison is limited to port authorities that account for at least 1% of the total, so that an extreme swing at a small player does not distort the picture.

The rest of the top ten are Las Palmas (4th, 13.5 million, −4.1%), Baleares (5th, 11.6 million, +9.5%), Bilbao (6th, 9.5 million, −1.8%), Santa Cruz de Tenerife (7th, 6.39 million, +8.2%), Vigo (8th, 3.57 million, −3.1%), Castellón (9th, 3.49 million, +10.6%) and Sevilla (10th, 2.31 million, +0.1%).

At the bottom of the table are Vilagarcía (601,069 tonnes), Motril (505,069 tonnes) and Huelva (485,784 tonnes), out of a total of 28 port authorities with data.

The distribution is highly concentrated: the top five account for 80.2% of the total and 5 port authorities are enough to reach 80%, while the other 18 port authorities further down share the remaining 9.1%. 24 of the 28 port authorities with a comparison grew compared with 2015, 11 of them by double digits, and 4 fell.

Of the 12 months of 2016 with data, 12 are above the same month of 2015 and 0 below; over the last three months (October, November, December) the figure is up 5.5% on the same months of 2015; the largest year-on-year difference was in February (up 8.9%); the highest point in the series was May, at 20.7 M, and the lowest January, at 17.4 M.

Between 2012 and 2016 the figure went from 219.1 M to 236 M, an increase of 7.7% over 4 years (+1.9% a year on average); the last year is the high point of the series and the low was 2013 (213.4 M).

General cargo is everything shipped packed or in units: containers, ro-ro, vehicles, steel products, paper, timber and project cargo. It is the highest-value cargo and the most closely tied to foreign trade in manufactured goods, which makes it the port system’s best gauge of the real economy. Puertos del Estado splits it into containerised and conventional cargo.

Puertos del Estado. To explore the data in detail, use PortStats · general cargo by type, annual series or see the original source.