The Krishnapatnam Port, a deepwater modern port near here, has emerged as the first Indian port to handle a Capesize vessel with the berthing of the ‘MV Lancelot’ bulk cargo vessel on Sunday.
The vessel carried fertiliser from Yantai Port, China. For handling Capesize vessels, which travel between oceans with high volumes of cargo, deep draft berths are required and these are provided at the Krishnapatnam Port.
Officials of the Port said that the berthing of MV Lancelot opened a new chapter in the bulk cargo handling and the vessel carried 93,500 MT of prilled bulk urea imported by the Nagarjuna Fertilisers and Chemicals Ltd. They said that the Krishnapatnam Port had infrastructure facilities which include railway handling with 13 numbers of loading lines for coal, fertiliser and general cargo. The port is currently handling 6 numbers of fertiliser rakes everyday and it will be increased to 8 numbers during peak agricultural season. The Port is expected to handle 3 MMT of fertiliser cargo for the financial year 2013-14. The warehouses at the port have the latest state-of-the-art fully automatic bagging machines, which are imported from Germany and Spain, for filling bulk fertiliser into bags.
