Yantai Port [Photo provided to en.sd-port.com]

Yantai Port was first put into use in 1861, and has grown from a primitive natural port into a national main pivot in waterway traffic and an important coastal open port in China.

Located in the core area of the northeast Asia international economic circle, the port is an important passageway between south and north in China's coastal area and the pitch point of the New Eurasian Continental Bridge under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Furthermore, it is one of the 15 key ports in coastal cites under the BRI.

In August 2019, Shandong Port Group Co., Ltd. was established, and Yantai Port became one of its four major ports. A modern port cluster has been formed with Zhifu Bay Port Area, Western Port Area, Longkou Port Area, Laizhou Port Area and Penglai Port Area as the main body, supported by the logistics channel on the south bank of Bohai Bay, and with Bokai Port and Jinbo Port in Guinea as overseas bridgeheads. 

Yantai Port mainly focuses on the loading and unloading and transport of bulk cargo, containers, liquid bulk, commercial vehicles, and cargo-passenger Ro-Ro.

Now a modern port group company, it had 97 berths for various purposes, including 81 deep-water berths for vessels over 10,000 DWT by the end of 2019. It also had a total dock coastline of 24,063 meters, a total railway special line of 64.4 kilometers and a total area of 9.12 million square meters for warehouses and yards. It has 1,160 sets of handling machines worth 43.5 billion yuan ($6.24 billion).

In 2024, the cargo throughput of Yantai Port reached 450 million tons, up 6.4 percent year-on-year. The container throughput reached 5 million TEUs, up 10 percent year-on-year, ranking 10th among the global coastal ports in port capacity. As the world's largest importer of bauxite, its annual bauxite volume exceeded 130 million tons. Served by 26 general cargo services, the port has connections to over 30 countries like Africa, America, Europe and Southeast Asia, maintaining a national top-tier position. Its vehicle transshipment volume increased 22 percent year-on-year, securing the top position nationwide.

By capitalizing on multiple advantages brought about by its 400,000 DWT ore terminal – and its position as a blending base for incoming iron ore – Yantai Port has become the only port enterprise nationwide to carry out the blending business for four types of iron ore cargo via specialized process lines.

Yantai Port has remained top place nationally in terms of bauxite imports, chemical fertilizer imports and exports.  

Yantai Port [Photo provided to en.sd-port.com]