Belfast Harbour: Profit up and trade volume down at port

Underlying pre-tax profit at Belfast Harbour rose by 1% to £34.3m in 2022 though trade volume fell 4.3% from their record highs.

Total tonnage through the port was 24.5 million tonnes, representing the second-highest level in its history.

The record performance in 2021 had been boosted by a post-pandemic bounce-back.

The harbour said the 2022 performance was robust "despite a challenging global trading environment".

Dr Theresa Donaldson, the chairwoman of Belfast Harbour, said: "The strong results demonstrate the resilience and effectiveness of our Trust Port model, which enables us to reinvest our profits back into the development of our port and estate."

Farmers and fertiliser

Official data for all ports in Northern Ireland, which was released earlier this year, showed that roll-on roll-off freight, which is how most consumer goods are transported, increased by 19% to 16.2 million tonnes.

But that was offset by big falls in bulk freight and containers.

Dry bulk, which includes things like coal, gravel, grain and fertiliser, fell by 25% to 7.1 million tonnes.

The fall in dry bulk likely reflects reduced imports of coal for power generation and possible changes in behaviour by businesses in response to soaring inflation.

For example, farmers are likely to have reduced fertiliser use in response to very high prices.

Those trends are also evident in the Belfast Harbour results which show roll-on roll-off freight on Stena Line performed strongly, recording 600,000 freight units matching the record performance delivered in 2021.