Thanks to the +9.8% growth in miscellaneous goods, which was accentuated in the second quarter, which largely offset the sharp decline -52.1% in bulk cargo, the ports of La Spezia and Marina di Carrara have closed the first half of 2024 with a traffic of 8.52 million tonnes, with a limited down by -4.3% on the first six months of last year.

In the port of La Spezia alone, the total half-yearly volume is 6.21 million tonnes (-3.6%), with miscellaneous goods that, with 5.58 million tonnes, recorded an increase of +11.8% over the first half of 2023, marking in the segment of container an increase of +9.4% with 603 thousand TEUs handled, of which 556 thousand TEUs in import-export (+6.1%) and 47 thousand TEUs in transit (+73,1%). Significant, however, was the reduction in bulk volumes, with liquid waste amounted to 623 thousand tons (-55.9%) and liquid waste solid to over 3 thousand tons (-90.4%). The Authority of Port System of the Eastern Ligurian Sea specified that, with regard to liquid bulk cargo, the decrease is due to mainly to the halving of natural gas traffic by -54% liquefied at the Panigaglia regasification plant (583 thousand tons), currently subject to a modernisation plan by Snam, while dry bulk - the Authority recalled - now represent a structurally negligible type of traffic for the port La Spezia after the closure of the Enel plant.

As for containerized traffic, the Port Authority highlighted that in the first six months of 2024, compared to 131 thousand empty TEUs in entry, there were 259 thousand full TEUs outgoing which underline the recovery of exports from the reference territories of the port of La Spezia. Intermodal transport is also positive, with reached the share of 34.1% of container volumes handled at the net transhipment, despite the ongoing modernization works of the tracks in the port, compensated with the shuttle service of road shuttle with the hinterport of Santo Stefano di Magra implemented by the Port Authority in the context of services of interest general economic situation. In the first six months of the year, 1.52 million tons of goods transported by rail containerized (+6.8%), equal to over 154 thousand TEUs handled (+6,8%).

In the first half of this year, the port of Marina di Carrara handled 2.31 million tons of cargo (-5.9%), of which 1.97 million tons of general cargo (+4.7%) consisting of 978 thousand tons of rolling stock (+5.3%), 681 thousand tons of containerized goods (+0.4%) made with a handling of containers equal to 51 thousand TEUs (+1.0%) and 309 thousand tons of conventional goods (+13.3%). In the of liquid bulk cargo, with a total of 346 thousand tons, is -40.4% was marked, mainly attributable to the stone material.

In the first six months of 2024, cruise traffic in the port of La Spezia was 282 thousand passengers (+0.9%), while a Marina di Carrara was over 7 thousand passengers (+82.5%).

In the second quarter of 2024 alone, the port of La Spezia handled a total of 3.30 million tons of goods, with a decrease of -3.9% on the same period of 2014. last year, of which 3.04 million tonnes of miscellaneous goods (+13.0%) - including container handling of 328 thousand TEU (+10.85) -, 251 thousand tons of liquid bulk (-65.5%) and more of 3 thousand tons of dry bulk (-61.7%).

Marina di Carrara closed the second quarter of this year with a total freight traffic of 1.23 million tons (-6.2%), of which 1.07 million tonnes of miscellaneous goods (+8.9%) - including container traffic of 27 thousand TEUs (+0.6%) - and 167 thousand tons of dry bulk (-50.3%).

"We are collecting - said president of the Port Network Authority - Mario Sommariva, commenting on the traffic data recorded in the First half of 2024 - signs of renewed vitality of our ports, La Spezia and Marina di Carrara, strong in their geographical position and services that can count on important land connections, which we are in the process of digitizing completely. We are equipping ourselves to receive more and more sustainable increasingly large ships with important works infrastructure redevelopment and modernisation, and we are looking synergistically at the development of our territories of working on tools such as FTAs, on which we focus A lot. The future - Sommariva specified - is still difficult to predict, but in all cases we are equipping, together with our entire port community, to deal with it in the best possible way."