Mombasa Port continues to record incredible cargo handling statistics

Cargo Vessel MV X-Press Kilimanjaro at the port of Mombasa.

The Port of Mombasa has continued to record exceptional performance at its container terminal.

Container carrier, MV X Press Kilimanjaro docked at the facility on Friday at 16.45 hrs with 1,887 import containers and planned to load 1,914 export containers.

By 0700hrs Saturday morning (after 14.25 hrs),the vessel had registered a total of 2,344 moves at 165 moves  per hour.

According to Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) General Manager Operations, Captain William Ruto, the record performance compares  well with top ten performing container terminals like Singapore and surpases previous performance of 150 moves per hour.

Container evacuation by the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) also performed well as out of 1,210 TEUS  destined for Inland Container Deport Nairobi (ICDN), 710 TEUs had been railed withing 14 hours.

''Nairobi had  also attained the highest performance ever recording 1,107 TEUs  deliveries in 24 hours,'' Ruto said.

He attributed this to the recent directive by the government to reduce  the number of government agencies involved in cargo intervention.

Meanwhile, another container ship MV Emirates Asante also docked over the weekend with 1023 containers,SGR bound containers recorded 397 while transit bound were 423.

Captain Ruto said that the consignee/importers with their cargo onboard this vessels can clear their containers at the Nairobi ICD from yesterday.

Since the government embarked on massive upgrade of the Port, the facility has been receiving many larger vessels calling to discharge cargo and load the same.

Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) Strategic Plan 2013-2017 witnessed major developments in port infrastructure and improvements in port performances.

Some of the notable infrastructure developments include completion and operationalisation of phase 1 of the Second Container terminal  and the expansion of the Inland Container Depot Nairobi (ICDN) .

In addition, the construction of Lamu Ports first three berths to almost 60 per cent, expansion of port entry and exit gates and yards and full installation of the Intergrated Port Security Systems were also implemented.