Chittagong port gets ready to manage large container vessels

According to the Business Standard report, Chittagong port is ready to operate large container vessels, a draught of 10m and length of 200m from 2023 onwards. This development was carried out after a year-long research led by UK-based consultancy HR Wallingford on the port channel and Karnaphuli River. The report said that Chittagong port’s existing infrastructure has the ability to berth large vessels with 10m draught and even more after extending the dredging work.

The improvement of the port’s berthing capabilities will allow increased container handling capacity with reduced transport costs as well as reduced turnaround time. As per the ports Spokesperson, Faruq, the 10m draught ships will help reach the port’s jetty in the first half of the year and the port will inform the shipping firms, local and international of the changes in the Chittagong port about handling larger vessels on the route.

At present, Chittagong manages 9.5m draught ships from ports like Singapore, China, Port Klang, Tanjung Pelps in Malaysia, and Colombo in Sri Lanka. However, with the new change of large vessels with 10m draught, it can carry up to 4000 containers to the Chittagong port. This will help the port to manage high-capacity TEUs from 1000 to 1100 on each ship and reduce the operation costs.

The trial at the Chittagong port will start soon and after its completion, the major global shipping firms will be notified of the change at the port.