Work on India's long-awaited mega deep-water port project at Vadhavan, some 120 miles north of Nhava Sheva Port (JNPA), is ready to take off.

The project was approved by the Indian government in 2020 for development under a public-private partnership (PPP) model at an estimated cost of about US$9 billion. A special purpose vehicle (SPV) formed between JNPA, with a 74% stake, and the Maharashtra Maritime Board, holding the remainder 26% ownership, has the mandate to build and operate the project.

Vadhavan has been conceived and designed as a satellite facility to Nhava Sheva as the latter had become saturated with little room for further capacity additions.

However, various mandatory approval delays stalled the new project’s progress.

The consortium has now received all approvals to kick off construction, according to JNPA.

“The application filed by JNPA for grant of permission to establish and develop a major port, that is Vadhavan Port, is granted and the applicant-JNPA is permitted to establish and develop Vadhavan Port at Vadhavan,” a statement said.

The statement added, “With JN Port set to exhaust its full capacity of 10 million TEUs after the ongoing projects are commissioned, and unable to be dredged further from the 15-metre draught, Vadhavan will be developed as a deep draught port to cater to large container, bulk and crude vessels.”

JNPA went on to explain, “The objective is to augment and develop a greenfield facility to handle the growing traffic demand of ports on the west coast.”

The potential of Vadhavan stems from two factors: the site has deep natural depth of 20 meters that can accommodate vessels of up to 25,000 TEU capacity and its access to a large hinterland market.

“A natural water depth of 20 metres is available at a distance of 10 km, and 15 metres contour is available at 6 km from the shore, which allows safe voyage and mooring for the new generation vessels,” it said.

“No capital dredging is required in the navigational channel and harbour area as draught of 18 metres is naturally available,” the statement added.

Vadhavan Port is expected to provide a capacity of 15 million TEUs in Phase I, going up to 24 million TEUs when fully build-out.

Nhava Sheva, featuring five box facilities, faces growing competition from Adani Group’s Mundra Port.

There has been a general view that a portion of Nhava Sheva’s anticipated trade growth could spill over to Mundra if adequate capacity is not created.

“The demand for container traffic will further accelerate after the plans for improving logistics infrastructure fructify and the 'Make-in-India' push drives greater exports and manufacture sourcing to India,” the government previously said, while approving the Vadhavan project.

The Government of Spain, via the Moves Singular Projects II Programme, has granted US$4.3 million to APM Terminals Barcelona to finance part of a pilot project for the electrification of the container handling equipment operating at the terminal, which is expected to reduce CO2 emissions by approximately 821 tonnes per year.

The project will include the acquisition of five zero-emission electric Straddle Carriers, four recharging stations, civil and electrical works, the IT network and the development of programmes and processes to implement the technology required for operations and recharging of the machinery.

The aim is to provide a greater understanding of the technical and economic viability of this emission-reducing project, optimise processes and investigate its scalability to other terminals where cargo is handled with similar machinery.

"At APM Terminals we are committed to reducing CO2 emissions and we will spare no effort in meeting our 2030 goals. For us it is very important that this is done in a collaborative way with the governments of the countries where we operate. If there is anything that definitely belongs to all of us, it is our planet," commented Carlos Arias, general manager of APM Terminals Spanish Gateways.

The project is also expected to bring benefits in terms of equipment availability, improved maintenance processes and the creation of a cleaner and safer working environment by significantly reducing the use of oil in daily operations and waste generation.

As well as the fact that the new electric Straddle Carriers are zero-emission, the electricity contracted by the terminal comes exclusively from renewable sources.

The Panama Canal announced it will maintain a draft of 13.41 metres for the next several months, "as long as weather conditions do not vary significantly from current projections".

Panama Canal noted that consistent with this draft and along with this temporary condition, an average of 32 vessels per day will be allowed to transit.

"As part of a worldwide phenomenon, in the last six months, the Canal has experienced an extended dry season with high levels of evaporation, with a high probability of an El Niño condition before the end of this calendar year," pointed out the Canal in a statement.

The Canal added it has been implementing procedures to improve water efficiency in its operations, while conducting studies to identify long-term solutions to climate variability.

Kaohsiung Harbor 1 had to be sealed off this morning (20 July), after a container ship listed and sent some boxes falling overboard.

Taiwan International Ports Corporation said that around 9 am local time today, it was alerted to the incident involving the 2003-built 1,581 TEU Angel, which suffered water ingress after its hull cracked.

The ship captain announced that the crew was abandoning the vessel, and all 19 seafarers were rescued. One of the men was injured and was sent to a hospital.

Marshall Islands-incorporated Navramar Shipping is shown in databases as being the owner of Angel, which had arrived in Kaohsiung from Dalian, China, on 2 July. VesselsValue lists the last charterer of the ship as Taiwan-based Cheng Lie Navigation (CNC Line), CMA CGM’s intra-Asia arm.

Around 8.46 pm local time on 4 July, port authorities acceded to a request from the captain of Angel to be moored at Kaohsiung’s anchorage No. 2, to await further orders. Angel had been anchored there with 1,349 empty containers, until today’s incident, which caused the ship to list, causing six boxes to fall into the water. Accordingly, the harbour was closed off to facilitate the salvage works.

TIPC requested Angel’s agent to set up at least two oil booms to prevent oil spills, arrange for water to be pumped out of the ship, and salvage the fallen containers.

A command post has been set up at the port to prepare food, water, and towels for the rescued seamen. At present, two tugs have been dispatched for protection, and a meeting will be held this afternoon to discuss the towing of Angel.

It is the second accident to hit Taiwan’s main port this month. On 10 July, the Wan Hai 312 hit and damaged some revetment in Terminal No. 2.

China's Xiamen port has begun double-berthing feeder ships to speed up the movement of containers along inland waterways in Fujian province.

Double-berthing involves parking one feeder vessel outside another feeder ship that is already berthed, and having the gantry cranes load containers on both ships concurrently.

Early this week, the exercise saw the 210 TEU Haibangda 318 parked next to the 215 TEU Haibangda 328, which was docked along berth No. 12 at Xiamen Haitian Container Terminal. A gantry crane then offloaded containers from Hai Bang Da 318, right across the adjacent ship. Both ships are owned by Shenzhen Haibangda Shipping, a local feeder operator.

Port officials said that double-berthing will boost Xiamen’s status as a shipping centre in southeastern China.

For Xiamen Port, which is becoming increasingly busy, double-berthing improves the utilisation of a single berth and terminal equipment, while shortening the time needed for ships to berth.

Containers are quickly loaded and unloaded from one ship to another, reducing the secondary loading and unloading operations, boosting operational efficiency."

Port officials added that this will facilitate the fast turnover of goods in the hinterland and have a positive effect on the development of hinterland enterprises.

Shippers told Container News that double-berthing is possible because Xiamen has long berths.

This is an emulation of Shanghai's Yangshan Deepwater Port, which implemented double-berthing on all its terminals last week.

Double-berthing is not common in ports elsewhere due to wharf length limits.

Yangshan tested double-berthing in September 2019, as port officials felt there was a need to speed up the handling of containers from so many feeder vessels. Many of the feeder ships collecting goods from Shanghai do so at Yangshan and around 90% of the ships calling at Yangshan come from the Yangtze River Delta.