For the first time in the 71 years of its history, Bangladesh’s second-largest seaport Mongla port handled a gearless vessel on 3 February.
Recently, the port authority installed two multipurpose cranes and four mobile harbour cranes for faster handling and to enhance productivity. The 486 containers of the 1,774 TEU vessel Filotimo were unloaded and loaded by the port’s new equipment and the boxship left the port on 6 February towards Tanjung Pelepas port in Malaysia.
Deputy Secretary of Mongla Port Authority, Md Makruzzaman said in the past only the geared vessels had been taking berth in the port jetty as the port itself had no cranes of its own. He added that the productivity of those cranes was eight containers per hour while the port’s own cranes reached 15 containers an hour speeding up the output.
The average turnaround time for container vessels in the last two years was nearly three days, claimed Makruzzaman, who noted that the own cranes are helping to lower the turnaround time to two days.
“The time and costs both are saved due to the crane addition,” he pointed out.
In the fiscal year 2020-21, the seaport handled 43,959 TEU and 11.94 billion metric tonnes of cargoes, while it has the capacity to handle 100,000 TEU and with the recent addition of modern equipment, the handling capacity of the port has doubled.
The port authority is now implementing a project for extension and modernisation of facilities under which procurement of 75 pieces of new equipment is planned.
The port is building six more jetties to handle an increased volume of cargoes as the port’s connectivity is improving following the construction of the Padma Multipurpose Bridge that will directly link the capital city of Dhaka with the port. Located in the country’s southwestern Khulna division, the port will be busy after vehicles start running through the bridge this year. The six new jetties, once constructed, will add another 800,000 TEU capacity totaling 1 million TEU.
Sharar Nayel
Asia Correspondent
