Container handling resumes at Ctg port

Container handling has resumed at Jetty 3 of Chittagong Container Terminal at the Chittagong port, ending a 45-day suspension. Zafar Alam, member (administration and planning) of the Chittagong Port Authority (CPA), confirmed the matter to the Dhaka Tribune on Thursday. The container handling activities at the jetty came to a halt on June 25 when an Egyptian flagged container vessel, MV Xpress Suez, crashed into two gantry cranes in the container terminal while berthing at the terminal. Zafar Alam said the container handling operations resumed on Wednesday following the removal of one of the gantry cranes from the spot. Following the development, a 185m-long and 9.5m-wide vessel called Cape Monterey with the capacity of 1,173 twenty-foot equivalent units (TUEs) anchored at the jetty recently. The port has 12 container-handling jetties in the general cargo berth, new mooring container terminal and the container terminal. Around 90% of the country’s export and import activities are done through the port which is located by the estuary of the Karnaphuli River. Due to the damage of the gantry cranes, the port was facing huge vessel congestion for the last one and a half months, delaying berthing schedules of many ships waiting at the outer anchorage. Stakeholders attributed the congestion largely to inadequate infrastructure and equipment at the port. Although the Chittagong port has been experiencing 16-17% growth in cargo and container handling for the past few years, no jetty has been constructed in the last nine years. As a result, vessel congestion persists at the port due to insufficient jetty facilities. The Chittagong port has only four key gantry cranes, of which two are now out of order, whereas it needs 26. Against the need of 52 rubber-tyred gantry cranes, the port has just 23. Only 87 container loading and unloading equipment are functional at the port against the requirement of 299. The number of cargo handling equipment is 285, which should be 895. There are 19 empty handlers at the port against the need of at least 39. Some 43 tractor trailers are in place instead of the required 130.