Krishnapatnam Port, the world-class port on the Indian horizon, is already setting various benchmarks in its maiden year of operation. The port has achieved two milestones on 25th March’09 by handling the first Cape Size vessel and by achieving an All-India record load rate in 24 hrs.
Vessel MV Cape Santa Milagria, owned by Salgaocars of Goa, arrived to the port on 25th morning to load Iron ore. Krishnapatnam port has created an All-India record by loading 48,889 MTs of Iron Ore in the cape vessel in 24 hrs using the conventional handling system of shore cranes. Total cargo of 85,000 MT was loaded within 48 hours with any avg load rate of 42,947 MT per day and the vessel was turned around in a record time of 54 hours. MV Cape Santa Milagria, the cape-size vessel is 270 m long with a beam of 43 m, has a capacity of 1,39,816 metric tonnes.
Cape size vessels are handled only at select ports in India as even most of the Major ports cannot handle such vessel due to Length, Beam, Draft restrictions. Krishnapatnam port’s capability of handling such large vessels and with such record turnaround times will hugely benefit the exporters and importers by bringing down the freight costs and making them more competitive globally.
Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Executive Officer of KPCL congratulated the entire staff for making such a feat possible in a record time. He also commended the work of the Marine and Dry Cargo departments that were directly involved in achieving the record. “KPCL is capable of setting even higher benchmarks and we are gearing up to bring in two more berths in four months time,” the CEO said.
Salgaocar Mining, whose vessel was loaded in record time, has expressed their happiness and wished the port to set further records
Krishnapatnam Port has already handled 8 Million tonnes in its 1st year of operations and has recently completed Rs. 4000 crore financial closure for the 2nd phase of development. The port is handling a wide cargo mix varying from Iron ore, Coal, Coke, Fertilizers, Raw Sugar, Granite, Quartz, Rock phosphate & Gypsum. With excellent hinterland connectivity and through it state-of-the-art infrastructural facilities, Krishnapatnam port is poised to become the Biggest port in India
About KPCL
KPCL is a new generation deep water all-weather port located at Nellore in Andhra Pradesh. The port is being developed on build-operate-share-transfer basis in public-private partnership mode between the Government of Andhra Pradesh and the Krishnapatnam Port Company Limited promoted by the CVR Group. Currently, the port operates 4 berths with 15m draught alongside the berth and in the channel. The first phase was completed in a record time of 18 months and operations began in July 2008. The port surpassed a record throughput of 8 million tonnes in its 1st year of operations.
