Last month, in March, the Container Terminal of the Port of Koper set a monthly record for container throughput. In 31 days, the terminal handled 97,101 TEUs in the sphere of maritime throughput, far surpassing the previous monthly record set exactly three years ago, in March 2018, when slightly more than 92,300 TEUs were handled. “This is an important milestone, especially in the light of the consequences of the pandemic and the current global situation in logistics sector. The company congratulates all the employees at the Container terminal and involved business partners, whose work justifies the reputation of the most important container terminal in the Adriatic”, said Dimitrij Zadel, President of the Management Board of the Luka Koper, in his congratulatory remarks on the achievement.
The growth in container volumes and the high level of productivity and reliability will be supported by the Pier I extension project. The extension of the quayside of the terminal is expected to be completed in June this year, while the construction of the hinterland storage areas is continuing. “This is the most important infrastructure project in the Port of Koper in the last ten years, both from a financial as well as strategic point of view. It will increase the terminal’s annual capacity to 1.3 million TEUs, and, with additional improvements in the area of work processes, to one and a half million TEUs,” said Metod Podkrižnik, Member of the Management Board of the Luka Koper, who is in charge of the commercial and operational area.
This new milestone comes at a time when the Koper Container terminal, like the entire shipping industry worldwide, is facing major business challenges due to extraordinary health and business circumstances. From September 2020 onwards, the situation in the sphere of maritime transport from the Far East has been chaotic on a global level. Due to the increased volumes of goods from Asia, the occupancy of Asian container terminals and the impact of the pandemic and climate change, ship operators are unable to guarantee punctual arrivals of ships according to agreed schedules. “On the one hand, these are the challenges that we all want to face, because it means we have to cope with growing traffic. On the other hand, we are faced with large deviations from the agreed and established way of working and with fluctuations in large volumes of containers. This represents a major challenge for the terminal, which has to ensure not only its own smooth operation, but also the operation of the entire logistics system that runs through the Port of Koper. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our customers who understand the situation, cooperate with us, and support us in all the activities that lead to our common goal ‒ ensuring the fluidity of the terminal and the Slovenian hinterland transport infrastructure,” said Gordan Ban, Container Terminal Manager.
