Port operations went on smoothly despite the lull occasioned by the just concluded general election.
However deliveries of containerised cargo by trucks reduced to 8,871 TEUs down from 11,565 TEUs recorded in the previous week .Deliveries by rail transport declined to 189 TEUs from 255 TEUs. The Container Terminals received 12 vessels that recorded ship average working time of 2.55 days while the container dwell time registered 4.85 days.
During the week under review a total of 11,788 TEUs (full and empty) were loaded for export as the total container population recorded 15,244 TEUs. The container yard population comprised mainly 5,606 TEUs awaiting pickup order, 5,705 TEUs ready for collection and 242 TEUs full exports (nominated/un-nominated). Others in the yard included 284 TEUs for transhipments, 2,670TEUs empties and 737TEUs at the Customs warehouse.
Analysis of the import population revealed that 3,624 TEUs were locally bound while another 4,199 TEUs were for the transit market destinations. The Container Freight Stations received 817,839 TEUs delivered 814,631 TEUs leaving a balance of 3,208 TEUs.
Uganda maintained her leading position in the Transit market segment, accounting for 3,242 TEUs, followed by South Sudan with 263 TEUs, Democratic Republic of Congo with 236 TEUs and Tanzania with 218 TEUs. Others were Rwanda which accounted for 185 TEUs while Burundi and Ethiopia recorded 11 TEUs and 08 TEUs respectively.
The Conventional cargo terminal received 20 vessels and handled a total of 135,041 metric tonnes at an average of 15,005 metric tonnes per day. The dominant discharge operations were for the bulk maize and bulk wheat which accounted for 46,160 metric tonnes and 31,111 metric tonnes respectively. Other commodities discharged in large quantities included 16,500 metric tonnes of bulk fertiliser and 15,240 metric tonnes of bagged cement. Bulk clinker recorded 4,430 metric tonnes while bagged sugar registered 3,773 metric tonnes as bulk slug recorded 4,262 metric tonnes.
The Conventional cargo terminal also handled 7,194 metric tonnes of other assorted cargo, 2051 units of motor-vehicles and 88 units of trucks. The terminal which specialises in the handling of break bulk cargoes is expected to handle 998, 6462 metric tonnes in the next two weeks. The Container Terminals are expected to discharge 10,872TEUs and load 11,627 TEUs.