Mundra port handles heaviest project cargo

With handling of one more prestigious project cargo this week, its heaviest so far, the decade-old country’s first private port at Mundra in southern Kutch, has proved that weight, size and volume of any cargo does not matter for it.

“Yes, you name it and we will handle it as our unique handling operations of recent project cargos indicates. Only a few days ago, we handled Delhi Metro rail coaches. And now, in the middle of the last week, we successfully loaded our heaviest project cargo, a 585-tonne boiler for export to Al Jubail port of Saudi Arabia,” Niranjan  Engineer, general manager (corporate affairs), of Mundra Port and Special Economic Zone told DNA.

Notably, the one-piece boiler was assembled in Mundra SEZ itself by Thermax Limited at its unit spread over 7.5 acres, and this heaviest floor-mounted cargo was put aboard the vessel, MV Annette, by the ship’s derrick.

Captain Hemant Gupta, deputy general manager for dry cargo, said that normally stevedoring of any cargo was given to stevedores, but since boiler handling was a complex business because of it being uneven in shape and tidal of 5-6 metres also posed problem, the port decided to undertake its stevedoring itself.

The port had earlier handled a 280-tonne heavy project cargo, the experience of which stood it in good stead. Though the weight of boiler cargo was 585 tonne, this was not the heaviest cargo handled at any port. The credit for this goes to the govt-owned Kandla port, a next-door rival of Mundra.

“We handling agents are happy that the border district boasts of two state-of-the-art ports whose national record of handling the heaviest project cargoes has not been broken by any other port in the country,”  Tribhuvan Patel, whose shipping company had successfully handled the 620-tonne project cargo - two reactors - for Panipat refinery some years ago, said.

“Ours was, however, an import cargo, which, too, was handled with the ship’s cranes with on-the-spot guidance of Japanese experts who had specially come here for the purpose. The biggest problem was its transportation to Panipat refinery, more than 1,000 km from here, for which we had made a multi-wheel goods carrier,” he said, adding that later, the port had handled still heavier cargo of more than 700 tonnes.