The container vessel m.v. Far Vizag, for the first time, called at its namesake Visakhapatnam Port, more specifically the Visakha Container Terminal (VCT), on February 14.
The feeder vessel, belonging to Far Shipping Pvt. Ltd, is deployed on the Haldia, Visakha-patnam, Colombo, Visa-khapatnam, Haldia route and was headed towards Colombo. A total of 443 TEUs was loaded on to the vessel at VCT.
At a brief function held on board, Capt. Sriram Ravichander, COO of VCTPL, presented a memento to the Master of the vessel, in the presence of Mr Sameer Kumar and Mr Murthy of Far Shipping, Visakhapatnam, and other officials.
Far Shipping has also announced a new service connecting Visakhapat-nam with Chittagong and Colombo, with the proposed port rotation being Colombo, Vizag, Chittagong, Vizag, Colombo. A company statement said that the maiden call of the service would be on February 20. "There is good scope that we can cater to Vizag and hinterland cargo," said Mr Sameer Kumar.
VCT, meanwhile, has reportedly achieved 48 per cent growth in cargo handling in this fiscal till date. It is expected to handle around 1.45 lakh TEUs in 2010-11, as against 98,000 TEUs in 2009-10.
The terminal recently added a harbour mobile crane of 100-tonne capacity to its equipment. It had earlier ordered 2 new quay cranes, which are scheduled to be delivered towards the end of the year.
Another record VCT achieved recently was on January 11 when it registered 37.4 moves per hour on the vessel ACX Cosmos, thereby reflecting its superior operating efficiency, Exim News Service reports.