Last September, the ports of Genoa and Savona-Vado Ligure handled a total of 5.52 million tons of goods, with a slight decrease of -0.7% on September 2023, of which 3.98 million of tons handled in the port of the Ligurian capital (-5.7%) and 1.54 million tons in Savona-Vado (+14.8%).

In the third quarter of 2024, total traffic in the two Ligurian ports was 16.18 million tons of loads, with a decrease of -0.1% on the same period of the last year. In the port of Genoa alone, traffic amounted to to 11.82 million tonnes, with a decrease of -4.9% slowed down from the increases in containerized cargo traffic alone, which is result of 5.82 million tonnes (+11.0%) with a container handling of 624,445 TEUs (+7.6%), and the Vegetable oil and wine trafficking amounted to 86 thousand tons (+6,1%). The volume of conventional goods totaled 2.64 million tons (-6.1%). Accentuated the reduction of bulk cargo, with solid cargoes amounting to 170 thousand tonnes in the commercial segment (-14.0%) and 172 thousand tonnes in the industrial sector (-50.0%) and with liquid loads that A total of 2.63 million tonnes of mineral oils were recorded (-23.8%) and 107 thousand tons of chemicals (-12.9%). The Fuel and on-board supplies increased by +15.5% rising to 229 thousand tons.

In the July-September period of this year, however, traffic in the port of Savona-Vado, with a total of 4.36 million tons marked an increase of +15.7% generated by goods and dry bulk cargo. In the goods sector containerized traffic was 1.75 million tons (+64.1%) with a container handling of 118,485 TEUs (+26.9%) and in that of conventional goods of 1.19 million tons (+16.6%). The increase in the volumes of Dry bulk with 490 thousand tons of cargo handled (+19,5%). In the liquid bulk sector, oil traffic was 1.37 million tonnes (-9.5%) and that of other cargoes of 16 thousand tons (-44.5%). The fuel supplies and on-board supplies are amounted to 13 thousand tons (-8.1%).

Regarding the increase in containerized goods that concerned both the port of Genoa and that of Savona-Vado, the Authority of the Port System of the Western Ligurian Sea recalled that the Red Sea crisis that has been ongoing since the beginning of the year, which has led to a reorganisation of the networks of scheduled services to avoid the transit through the Suez Canal, has favored the ports closest to the Strait of Gibraltar, in Spanish ports but also the two Ligurian ports that in the third quarter of 2024 recorded an increase of +81.6% of the transhipment containerized traffic that resulted in equal to 143,117 TEUs, compared to import traffic and exports which, with a total of 599,813 TEUs, marked only one slight increase of +0.9%.

With regard to passenger traffic, the port of Genoa has closed the third quarter of this year with 1.39 million ferry passengers (-1.2%) and 516 thousand cruise passengers (-12.9%), while in Savona-Vado there were 286 thousand ferry passengers (+27.0%) and cruise passengers 188 thousand (-21.0%). About the decline of the cruise traffic in both Ligurian ports, the Port Authority has noted that "the reasons for the slowdown depend on mainly by some infrastructural interventions underway in the port of Genoa, which inhibit the use of a berth and, above all, from the location choices of the navigation and in the definition of its commercial offer arranged for the transfer of some ships from the Mediterranean Western towards areas with greater profitability".