TIANJIN, Jun. 7, 2010 (Xinhua News Agency) -- The cargo throughput of Tianjin Port stood at 35.28 million metric tons (tonnes) in May, up 5 percent year on year, while the containers throughput hit 852,000 TEUs, increasing 11.4 percent over a year earlier, registering renewals of the historical records for both indicators, according to the latest statistics from the port authority.
The statistics show that the cargo throughput of the port touched 163 million tonnes in the first five months of 2010, up 8 percent year on year. The figure of containers throughput registered in the port reached 3.83 million TEUs during the same period, up 11 percent over a year earlier.
In the meantime, the Tianjin Port also completed 4.23 million tonnes of crude oil transportation in May, up 42.1 percent over the same period last year, mostly due to the offshore crude output surge of China National Offshore Oil Corporation (NYSE:CEO) (CNOOC), China's largest offshore oil and gas producer, and crude oil import increase of Sinopec (NYSE:SNP) (SNP.NYSE; 600028.SH; 0386.HK), the country's largest oil refiner.
The Tianjin Port, a flagship sea port in China's northern part, in May launched four new containers freight routes, including the routes to the West Africa, eastern part of the United States, the South-east Asia and Taizhou Port in Zhejiang province. It also resumed operation of the freight route to the western part of the United States in the same month.
The Tianjin Port is located in China's northern industrial hub Tianjin, close to the Chinese capital Beijing. It is also the major outlet for the resources from the coal-rich central Shanxi and northern Inner Mongolia.