A lot is happening in the southern Baltic Sea

Shipping activities in the southern Baltic Sea are concentrated in several transshipment centres. The largest in terms of turnover is the Port of Gdańsk, which last year handled a total of 81mt (million tonnes), 12.7mt more than in the previous year. Such good results were primarily due to the Naftoport fuel terminal, which handled 471 tankers in 2023 and transhipped 36.6mt of cargo (an increase of 49% year-on-year). This is the result of the entire region switching from Russian oil, previously imported via land pipelines, to crude oil imported by sea from all over the world. Polish ports have taken over significant amounts of Ukrainian grain, which until now was transported through the Black Sea. Hence, large increases in this cargo category are visible in every centre. In the port of Gdańsk, the increase in grain transshipment in 2023 was as much as 60%. year to year and amounted to 3.1mt.

The Port of Gdańsk also operates the Baltic Hub — the largest container terminal on the Baltic Sea, which last year handled over 2 million TEU. The largest container ships in the world arrive at the Baltic Hub, including: Maersk Line, and in 2023, the terminal’s success was the launch of the new FAL1 service in co-operation with CMA CGM.

It is worth adding that preparations are under way to locate a floating FSRU (Floating Storage Regasification Unit) in the Gdańsk area, capable of unloading, storing and regasifying LNG. The FSRU terminal would have a regasification capacity of approximately 6.1 billion m3 of LNG per year. The terminal is scheduled to start operating at the turn of 2027/2028.

The second-largest port in terms of transshipment volume in the south is the port complex of Szczecin and Świnoujście. Last year, 35.5mt of cargo were handled here, most of which was grain and energy raw materials. Just like in Gdańsk, a 60% increase was also recorded in Szczecin in grain transshipments, which consisted primarily of Ukrainian corn and wheat sent to African countries and ports in Western Europe.

An important part of the Szczecin and Świnoujście port complex is the LNG gas terminal in Świnoujście. Last year, it handled 62 LNG tankers, which delivered a total of 4.66mt of LNG to Poland.

The third port in the southern Baltic Sea — the Port of Gdynia — handled a total of 29.4mt of cargo last year. It was dominated by general cargo (15.1mt) and grain (6.8mt). Other significant items include fuels — 3.5mt and coal and coke — 2.8mt. The volumes of the coal, after the record year of 2022, decreased in all Polish ports.

Gdynia also has a container terminal (Baltic Container Terminal), where 873,892 TEU were transshipped in 2023.

Agribulk cargoes from Ukraine also had an important share in the transshipment of smaller Polish ports. For example, in Kołobrzeg, which last year transshipped a total of 278,000 tonnes of cargo, Ukrainian corn accounted for as much as half of the turnover.

The ports of Gdańsk and Gdynia are deep-water ports where ships with a maximum draught limited by the Danish Straits (14.5–15m) can call, while the port in Szczecin, after recently modernization and deepening from 10.5m to 12.5m, can handle ships with cargo up to 40,000dwt. However, the most frequent guests are smaller and medium-sized ships from shipowners such as Wilson Ship Management and Wagenborg.

A completely new sector of shipowner activity in the southern Baltic Sea is the offshore sector. Several large wind farms are planned to be built here and, as a result, leading global companies have become very interested in this market.

The future Polish hub for offshore wind energy will be the ports of Szczecin and Świnoujście. The installation port of the Baltic Power offshore wind farm is being built in Świnoujście, for which the Polish fuel giant Orlen group is responsible. In turn, in Szczecin, the Danish company Vestas is building a plant to produce blades for the Vestas – V236-15.0 MW offshore wind turbine. The infrastructure of the former ST3 Offshore plant will be used in the second Vestas factory in Szczecin. It will be used to assemble wind turbine nacelles. In January this year, the Szczecin and Świnoujście Seaports Authority signed an agreement with a Spanish company from the offshore sector, Windar Renovables. The agreement covers a 30year lease of port areas. A factory will be built here to produce towers for installing wind turbines with a capacity of 20 megawatts.

In the coming years, a new deep-water container terminal is to be built in the port of Świnoujście. Work is currently under way to mark out a completely new approach track. This is a huge investment involving the excavation of a 70km-long waterway, 17 metres deep and 500 metres wide. The project value is PLN7.4 billion, of which PLN2.8 billion will come from EU subsidies. The new waterway is to bypass German territorial waters.