PORT INFORMATION GUIDE - Harbourmaster

PART I | 1. FOREWORD HARBOUR MASTER
PORT OF GÖTEBORG
1.1 GENERAL
I, Jörgen Wallroth, Harbour Master, welcomes you to the Port and City of Göteborg
The Port of Göteborg is on the west coast of Sweden in northern Europe. The port, founded
in 1621, is a combined river and seaport situated at the mouth of the Göta River.
Water transport was almost the only opportunity to get the Swedish classic exports of iron
and timber out and ports were very important for the Swedish economy.
In the 1840s the first berths were built along the riverbanks and when the port later on
needed more space, most of the port facilities moved out of the city centre to the north river
bank where the Skandia Container Terminal and the Älvsborg Harbour were built. The Ro/ro
Terminal is today the largest single port facility in Scandinavia for unitized cargo.
To allow the large oil tankers to berth, a crude oil jetty was built. Rya and Skarvik, where the
refined oil is handled, were improved. In 2004 the two fairways to the Port of Göteborg were
enhanced to provide safer, straighter, deeper, wider and shorter fairways. The port is
sheltered from the North Sea by the Danish mainland and two overlapping archipelagos. The
modern port facilities are concentrated on the northern bank of the river mouth. Older
facilities, for passenger and cargo ferry traffic, are located further upstream.
Today the Port of Göteborg is the leading container harbour in the Nordic region.
1.2 PORT REPORT
The owners are the citizens of Göteborg through the port company (Port of Göteborg AB),
where the City of Göteborg is the sole shareholder.
The Port of Göteborg is an important transit port. Between ten and fifteen per cent of the
general cargo shipped through the port is transhipped between an extra-European country
and a Nordic country other than Sweden.
In terms of tonnes, oil is the dominant cargo with 52 per cent of the total cargo turnover.
Then come containers and trailers, forest products, steel and cars.
1.3 PORT PERFORMANCE
Volumes
• 862,500 containers TEU
• 625,300 ro/ro units
• 271,500 new cars
• 1.9 million passengers
• 22.8 million tonnes of oil
• 43.3 million tonnes of goods
Finance
• 1,220 employees
• Net sales SEK 1,640 million
• Earnings after financial items SEK 75 million
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PORT INFORMATION GUIDE • Source: Harbour Master Port of Göteborg • May 2009