Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port (SMP), which was earlier known as Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT), has achieved another milestone earlier this week after the biggest cape-size vessel arrived from Australia at the Sagar anchorage.
MV Lake D is anchored around 80 miles from SMP and nearly 25 miles from Haldia Dock Complex (HDC). The Panama ship is the largest of its kind and carries about 66, 000 metric tonnes of steam coal. Constructed in 2011, it was anchored in the ocean for the first time with 20 Filipino crew.
The large dry cargo ships have a capacity to handle 60,000 tonnes to 1,30,000 tonnes. Proper navigability is required to bring any large cargo ship to the port.
MV Lake D left Abbott Point in Australia on May 10 this year and it collected fuel in Singapore. It then sailed for Sagar anchorage after unloading 95,810 metric tonnes of goods at Visakhapatnam port.
According to Vineet Kumar, the chairperson of Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port, the arrival of the world’s largest cargo ship at Sagar anchorage posed challenges in releasing the goods and in its maintenance, however, it was efficiently handled by port engineers, navigators, sailors, and staff. He further explained that the entire cargo was unloaded through two floating cranes.
The official assured that the port has overhauled its infrastructure, including the building of floating cranes and floating jetties worth Rs 170 crore. This has been done so that big ships show interest in arriving there.
Kumar said the arrival of such a cape vessel at the anchorage’s 9.2-metre draft was a landmark in the port’s 151-year-old history. The overall length of the vessel is 292 metre and its beam is 45-metres-wide.
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