After the -49.1% year-on-year decline recorded last year July, in the following month the traffic of goods in the port of Taranto marked an increase of +20.3% over August 2024 being amounted to 1.18 million tonnes. Growth has been generated by the increase in volumes of liquid and solid bulk cargo respectively to 458 thousand tons (+19.6%) and 673 thousand tons (+50,4%). Goods in containers, with 6 thousand tons, have -2.7% and the other miscellaneous goods with 45 thousand tons (+69.1%).

In the first eight months of 2025, the Apulian port of call handled a total of 8.78 million tons of goods, with a increase of +16.7% over the same period last year, of which 2.85 million tonnes of liquid bulk (+6.1%), 4.36 million tonnes of tons of dry bulk (+21.6%), 61 thousand tons of goods containerized (-32.3%) and 1.51 million tons of other goods miscellaneous (+30.1%). The total passenger traffic passed through the port was 103 thousand units (-1.8%).

Meanwhile, the ferry Drea, which was part of the fleet of Moby and was recently sold to the Messina-based Med Fuel, was also rejected by the port of Taranto as the Port System Authority of the Ionian Sea has not authorized the docking of the ship "keeping as a priority - explained the port authority - of legitimate concerns expressed by the local community about possible risks related to in the presence of asbestos". In recent weeks, in fact, the Drea had landed in Split precisely to carry out the removal of asbestos-containing panels at the shipyard Brodosplit, but the Croatian Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Maritime Infrastructure had imposed the departure of the ferry as the removal of the asbestos would have taken place in violation of the national regulations. Subsequently, the ship was rejected also from the port of Crotone, and now also from Taranto, even if at the was allowed to stop temporarily in the Apulian port as the commander of the unit declared a state of emergency in view of the difficult weather conditions and the consequent possible subsidence of the tow cable that connects it to the tugboat.