A new record performance has been registered at the port of Mombasa by a Container ship that handled 852 Twenty Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) in less than an eight hour-shift.
Evergreen Shipping Line vessel Mv. Cape Maas reported her first sling on Sunday, 30th August at 2320 Hours and remained busy moored alongside berth No 18 until Wednesday 2nd September when she recorded her last sling at 1940 Hours.
The gearless vessel with a length overall of 212.6 meters and a breadth of 32.4 meters recorded 3,228 cumulative moves in 51.34 hours. She posted her best performance on the third shift using three Ship to Shore Gantries where she registered 116 berth moves per hour.
The Colombian registered ship has a total capacity of 2,800 TEUs, a gross tonnage of 35,708 and a declared draft of 12.5 metres. Built in 2011, the ship has 506 refer plug points (338 plugs on deck and 168 plugs in cargo hold).
She regularly calls at the port of Mombasa Monthly flying a Marshal Islands flag. Her last port of call was Majuro in the Marshall Islands. The record shift performance by the cellular vessel now shatters that of 755 moves set recently by the largest ever container vessel to call at the port.
Maersk Shipping Line vessel, MV. Clemens Schulte which also worked with three Ship to Shore Gantries recorded the impressive performance during her second shift in August 20th. The celebrated vessel had recorded 3397 cumulative moves in 48.91 hours.
Following the announcement of the new record, KPA Managing Director Gichiri Ndua has commended the container operations team for the job well done and urged the team to ensure sustainability. The same sentiments have been echoed by the Ship’s Agent Gulf Badr operations Manager Amr Mostafa.
In a communication to KPA, Mostafa said the Evergreen Shipping Line had enhanced its operations since January and was looking forward to becoming the best caller at the port of Mombasa.
Meanwhile 20 general cargo and seven container vessels called at the port of Mombasa last week. The Container carriers discharged 8500 TEUs (loaded and empty) and loaded another 10,131 TEUs.
At the Conventional cargo section, a total of 208,838 metric tonnes were handled at an average of 29,834 metric tonnes per day. Motor-car imports accounted for 3,614 units with an average of 516 units per vessel.
Bulk Clinker imports from five vessels recorded 124,879 to lead in the list of non-containerised commodities followed by bulk wheat which accounted for 26,526 metric tonnes.
Other notable imports were 22,016 metric tonnes of bulk fertilizer, 7,682 metric tonnes of steel, and 1,272 metric tonnes of assorted general cargo.
The total yard container population by the close of the week stood at 12,800 TEUs down from 13,580 registered during the previous week. There were 4766TEUs awaiting pickup order,1778 TEUs ready for collection and 2066 TEUs full exports (nominated/un-nominated).
There were 459 TEUs for Transhipment,2601 TEUs empties and 1130 TEUs at the Customs Warehouse.
Deliveries of containers from the port during the week under review by road and rail transport accounted for 8,899 TEUs and 291TEUs respectively.
Local Containerised Imports recorded 3,198 TEUs while transit bound accounted for 4,163 TEUs with Uganda bound maintaining the lead with 2,899 TEUs.
Other transit market countries were South Sudan with 365 TEUs, Rwanda with 287 TEUs, Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania with 247 TEUs and 205 TEUs respectively.
The next fortnight is expected to see the conventional cargo section handle 333,817 metric tonnes of imports and 4080 metric tonnes of exports.
The Container operations is expected to handle 5359 TEUs imports and 5818 TEUs exports.
Source: Costweek

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