The West Africa Raw Cashew season has commenced at Kochi, with the arrival of CMA CGM's vessel m.v. Letavia at the International Container Transhipment Terminal at Vallarpadam.

The arrival draft of the vessel was 12 mt and the LOA (length overall) was 220 mt. The vessel operation was completed in about six hours for a volume of about 600 TEUs at an average productivity of 28.56 moves per crane per hour. With productivity increasing everyday, vessel berth stay has been reduced by over 50 per cent since the start-up of ICTT.

The current vessel is of CMA CGM's WAX service, a weekly service bringing cashew from Tema, Apapa, Abidjan touching Durban before calling Kochi. The season lasts for four months starting May and ending by August, a press release said.

This is a mainline service from Africa to China, which touches Colombo on its normal routing. During the next four months, the service will omit the Colombo call and instead call Kochi. During this season, cargo bound for Colombo will get trans-shipped at Kochi. The service has 11 vessels with a capacity of 3,500 TEU and an LOA of over 220 mt.

Kochi has been used as a transhipment hub by CMA CGM for the past two years at RGCT and this time at ICTT the line has even bigger plans. Cargo bound to Tuticorin, Mangalore and Vizag gets trans-shipped at ICTT apart from cargo for Kollam.

Kochi sees maximum imports and the trade is busiest during this season. An average of 25,000 TEUs of cashew passes through Kochi during this period.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW