Chennai Port geared to handle large vessels

Chennai port is now the deepest port among Major Ports to help handle large-size ships, Cyril George, Chairman, Chennai Port Trust, told newspersons.

Draft at Bharathi Dock is 17.5 m, at Ambedkar 15.5 m; at Jawahar Dock 14 m, at CITPL 15.5 m and DP World 13.4 m. The port will handle container vessels of around 8,000 TEUs (twenty foot equivalent units). This is a major achievement for the port, he said.

The port reported a 4.7 per cent decline in cargo handling to 50.06 million tonnes (MT) in 2015-16 as against 52.54 MT in the previous year. Despite this, the port managed to report an 82 per cent increase in net surplus due to handling of higher revenue generation cargo like project cargo to report higher operating income, he said.

In 2015-16, the port’s two private container terminals handed a total of 1.56 million TEUs, which was the highest number of containers handled till date thus surpassing 1.55 million TEUs handled in 2011-12, said George.