Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone’s (APSEZ) flagship port – Mundra Port — on Sunday berthed the 399-metre-long and 54-metre-wide vessel MV MSC Hamburg. The MV MSC Hamburg equals the size of four football fields and is a container ship built in 2015. The container ship has a carrying capacity of 15,908 TEUs (twenty feet equivalents) and a current draught of around 12 metres, according to a statement from the group.  

“APSEZ Mundra Marine Team ensured and facilitated accurate predictions for the clearance required to berth the ship safely by factoring in all the complex conditions of the vessel and live weather conditions,” the statement said.  

The development comes as Switzerland-based Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) and Adani International Container Terminal Pvt. Ltd.’s (AICTPL) joint venture completes 10 years. APSEZ and Switzerland-based Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) entered a JV to operate its new container terminal at the Mundra port.  

The JV operates AICTPL, the third container terminal at the Mundra port. The container terminal has a capacity of 1.5 million TEUs. Commenting on the JV, Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani said: “With rapid access to North and West India hinterland, the Trade at large will benefit from scale benefits of larger vessels calling at Mundra providing a compelling cost advantage to port users.”  

This, however, is not the first time that APSEZ has achieved such a feat. In 2021, APSEZ berthed the 13,892 TEU APL Raffles, the largest vessel to call at any Indian port. The vessel had a length of 397.88 metres and a breadth of 51 metres.  

The Mundra port has resumed all its operations after the government ordered a temporary suspension of services across ports due to Cyclone Biparjoy. The container movement has picked pace again after restarting operations. Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) recorded a port cargo volume with 339 MMT in FY23. 

Adani Ports’ ports and terminals represent 24 per cent of the country’s port capacity. TEUs (twenty feet equivalents) are the standard units for quantifying cargoes at container ships. At the time of market closing on Friday, APSEZ was down 2.33 per cent to trade at 738.90 apiece on the BSE.

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