The Hindu Business Line : Mainline box vessel from W. Africa calls at New Mangalore port

Wooing mainline ships: Mainline container vessel, mv CMA CGM Okapi, from West Africa calls at the New Mangalore port. This is the second mainline vessel to call at New Mangalore.

A.J. Vinayak

Mangalore, May 15 The cashew industry in Karnataka has got a further boost with the calling of a mainline container vessel from West Africa at New Mangalore Port. Now, the industry is connected with both East and West Africa for raw cashew imports.

The mainline container vessel — m.v. CMA CGM Okapi — called at New Mangalore Port on Wednesday evening directly from Port of Cotonou in Benin of West Africa with 355 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) of raw cashew. This amounts to the import of around 7,000 tonnes of raw cashew.

The first mainline container vessel — m.v. Kota Handal of PIL (Pacific International Lines) — with 121 TEUs of raw cashew called at New Mangalore directly from Matwara of East Africa on January 29.

Mr K. Prakash Rao, President of the Karnataka Cashew Manufacturers’ Association, told Business Line that the competence of the cashew sector in Karnataka is likely to go up with the calling of mainline vessels from both East and West Africa.

Travel time

The main advantage of mainline container vessels calling in at the port is that it will reduce the travel time of the commodity. Mr Rao said that earlier, the travel time was close to 45 days. “With direct sailing of mainline vessels, it will be less than 30 days,” he said. On account of the reduction in transit time, the quality of commodity will improve. This will help improve the competitiveness of cashew units from the state, he said.

During 2007-08, the cashew industry in Karnataka imported 69,850 tonnes of cashew through New Mangalore Port and about 4,000 tonnes through Kochi Port.

loading containers

Capt Shantanu Bhattacharya, Regional Manager (Operations), CMA CGM Shipping India Pvt Ltd, said that m.v. CMA CGM Okapi will load export containers to various destinations in the West Asian region.

The vessel has a capacity of 1,708 TEUs with 200 reefer plug points. The next port of call of the vessel is Port Rushid in the UAE.

Mr P. Tamilvanan, Chairman of New Mangalore Port Trust, said that the two mainline vessels will help raw cashew importers and reefer cargo exporters. The port handled 21,460 TEUs of containers in 2007-08 against 17,290 TEUs in the previous fiscal, recording a growth of 24 per cent. Calling of mainline container vessels at the port will help boost the growth of container cargo, he added.