COSCO Shipping Ports lifts throughput 15.7% in September

COSCO Shipping Ports moved 11.04 million TEUs across its global terminal network in September 2026, a 15.7% jump on the same month last year. That's the strongest signal in the operator's latest monthly filing, and it wasn't a one-off: the first nine months of the year totalled 93.91 million TEUs, up 8.5% year on year.

Third-quarter throughput reached 32.60 million TEU, a 9.2% annual increase. Put simply, the quarter just closed was COSCO's busiest stretch of the year so far.

Where is the growth actually coming from?

Overseas. Terminals outside China, excluding Container Terminal Tollerort in Hamburg, handled 3.56 million TEUs in September, up 20.7% on September 2025. Their cumulative January–September volume hit 31.48 million TEUs, an 18.9% rise — more than double the growth rate of the group as a whole.

Three overseas assets stand out:

• Suez Canal Container Terminal (Egypt): 540,300 TEUs in September, up 4%; nine-month volume of 4.70 million TEUs, up 17.3%.
• Piraeus Container Terminal (Greece): 366,600 TEUs in September, up 15.3%; nine-month throughput of roughly 3.09 million TEUs, up just 1.7%.
• CSP Chancay Terminal (Peru): 46,700 TEUs in September, up 25%; nine-month volume of 341,400 TEUs, up a striking 47.3%.

Chancay is the small one making the loudest noise. A near-50% expansion over nine months, off a modest base, suggests the Peru gateway is ramping exactly as its backers intended when it opened as a South America–Asia shortcut.

What about China?

The domestic portfolio was solid but uneven. The Pearl River Delta handled 2.77 million TEUs in September, up 22.6%, bringing its nine-month total to 23.88 million TEUs, 6.9% higher. The Southwest Coast grew 24.9% to 1.05 million TEUs for the month, though its cumulative volume was broadly flat at 7.24 million TEUs.

Southeast Coast terminals gained 23.6% to 556,100 TEUs, and the Yangtze River Delta edged up 6.8% to 1.55 million TEUs. The outlier was the Bohai Rim: throughput there slipped 2.4% to 1.55 million TEUs in September, even if its nine-month volume stayed 3.9% ahead at 14.06 million TEUs. One soft month, not a trend — yet.

What does this change for shippers and carriers?

For cargo owners routing through COSCO-controlled facilities, the numbers point to capacity and dwell-time headroom where volumes are growing fastest: the Pearl River Delta and the overseas network. Carriers allied with COSCO Shipping Lines gain from terminals that are absorbing double-digit growth without evident strain, at least on these figures. Forwarders watching the Chancay ramp-up should note it as an emerging option for South American west-coast routings, still small at under 47,000 TEUs a month but compounding quickly.

The one watch-item is Bohai Rim. If the northern China decline repeats in October, it would dent an otherwise consistent picture.

The trajectory, on current evidence, is straightforward: overseas terminals are growing at more than twice the group rate, and if Chancay and Suez hold their pace, the full-year overseas tally should comfortably beat 2025's output.