Aberdeen Harbour announced growing activity levels in 2018 across ship and cargo tonnage, passengers and arrivals. The growing port saw a 5% increase in ship tonnage in comparison with 2017, whilst offshore supply vessel tonnage and cargo tonnage increased by 6% and 3% respectively.
The port reported an increase in bigger project ships numbers, associated with offshore building and decommissioning. The vessels increased, in terms of ship tonnage, by 26% last year.
Ship arrival numbers increased from 6,775 in 2017 to a total of 9,266 in 2018. Port's South Harbour construction project is making progress, hence the high percentage of supporting ships operating in and out of North Harbour. Much of the remaining percentage is attributed to Vattenfall’s Aberdeen Offshore Windfarm operations.
Serco Northlink ferry passengers to/from the Northern Isles also increased by 5% in 2018 to over 151,000 passengers. Cruise passenger numbers increased by 71%.