Sectors of activity

Sectors of activity

The Port of Vilagarcía is a logistics platform that streamlines and strengthens the industrial activity of a large number of companies in our area of influence.

The port has the capacity and experience to handle all types of merchandise: dry bulks, liquid bulks and general cargo, including containerised merchandise.

A very noteworthy characteristic of the traffic at the Port of Vilagarcía is that it is not specialized in a single merchandise or a single type of product, but rather its historical evolution has provided the Port Authority itself and the operators installed in Vilagarcía with the necessary experience to accommodate and manage very different types of cargo.

The diversification of its traffic has been an incentive for the adaptability and flexibility of the port of Vilagarcía, which allows it to adjust as much as possible to the different needs of each and every one of its clients.

 

Value of merchandise moved through the port of Vilagarcía

The Port Authority has been carrying out a study on the value of merchandise moved through the port of Arousa for more than a decade. In 2022, the total industrial value of the merchandise moved through the port reached a new record. According to the calculations made by the Port Authority, this value was 2,214,695,922 euros.

merchandise value 2022

 

Conventional general cargo

Currently, the products included in the category of general cargo represent approximately half of the port traffic.

In the general cargo category, aluminium and chipboard stand out. Those are products closely linked to industrial activity in the area of influence of the Arousa port.

The Port of Vilagarcía is essential in providing the raw material necessary for the development of an important core of companies located in its hinterland and dedicated to the manufacturing of aluminium components by extrusion, with development in their movement since 2012, the port of Vilagarcía becoming an important hub in the distribution of this product for the entire Peninsula.

In the case of chipboard, the Port of Vilagarcía is linked to the activity of one of the main Spanish companies in this sector. The port not only exports boards produced in Galicia and in demand throughout the world, but also raw materials such as methanol or urea, used in the production process of manufacturing the board.

As for frozen fish, its importance lies in the fact that this product feeds the production lines of the by-products of molluscs, shellfish and fish produced by the meat processing plants located in the service area of the Port of Vilagarcía. It is a product that represents practically the entire value of the goods moved by the port in land traffic, a category that in 2022 represented approximately 9% of the value of all the products that enter and leave the port area. The activity of transformation of fishery products is one of the main sources of employment in the port of Vilagarcía.

Containerized general cargo

The movement of containerised merchandise accounts for approximately a35/40% of all general cargo traffic. Container traffic facilitates departure to the Canary Islands of products made in Galicia and which have their main destination in the Canarian market, through a regular connection with two ship calls per week, which connects Bilbao, Santander, Vilagarcía, Portugal and the Canary Islands, managed by the Boluda Group.

Additionally and since the summer of 2023, Nirint Shipping, a European company dedicated to maritime transport, uses the Boluda container terminal at the Ferrazo dock to connect Vilagarcía with several ports in the Caribbean (Barcadera, Willemstad, Bonaire, Santiago de Cuba, Mariel, Moa) and Canada (Halifax).

Dry bulk

The port of Vilagarcía also supplies important feed processing industries that are established in the interior of the central regions of Galicia.

Construction-related goods such as cement or wood are traffic that has historically been important in the port of Vilagarcía, although in recent years their importance in global traffic has decreased, due to the rise of other types of products and the decrease in activity in the construction sector.

One of the products which notably increased traffic in recent years is quartz from quarries in our surroundings and which is exported through the Arousa docks.

Liquid bulk

In the liquid bulk category, in addition to the aforementioned methanol, the traffic of oil for human consumption stands out. After making a significant investment in a plant for the reception, storage and distribution of this product in the Port of Vilagarcía, the Galician company with headquarters in Ourense, Aceites Abril, began its activity in 2015 to import edible oils, thus adding another important Galician sector of activity being serviced by the Port of Vilagarcía.

The port of Vilagarcía also has a liquid bulk terminal located on the Ferrazo wharf, which has methanol as its main traffic by volume of merchandise moved.