April 27, 2008	Sunday	Rabi-us-Sani 20, 1429

KARACHI, April 26: The first-ever container vessel ‘MOL Affinity’ with a draft of 12 metres will berth at the Karachi International Container Terminal (KICT) on May 4, official sources said on Saturday.

The vessel will be carrying 4,411 boxes against the average carrier’s capacity of around 3,400 Teus with 11 metre draft.

With this the Karachi Port will be the first port of the country to accommodate vessel with deeper draft. After accommodating the first deeper draft vessel, the port will continue to receive such vessels at both the container terminals, KICT and PICT (Pakistan International Container Terminal).

As a result of receiving deeper draft vessels the port would be able to handle 100,000 more boxes per annum.

It would also fulfil the requirement of the direct container liner services and benefit all the stakeholders, especially the trade and industry.

According to KPT sources, the port had been receiving requests from terminal operators and shipping lines to accommodate ships of 300 metres length and draft of 12 metres.

Consequently, the task of deepening of the approach channel and the berths was taken on war footing last month by bringing into action all the four available dredgers.

To achieve the required draft in a short period of 40 days was a challenging job because around 1.2 million cubic metres of silt was to be removed.

All four dredgers, including the newly inducted Abul with a capacity of 6,000 metres, were put into action to work round-the-clock and remove 1.2 million cubic metres silt.