Berthing of M V San Fernando marks birth of Vizhinjam Port

After unloading around 1900 containers, ship will depart for Colombo.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: During this time, Kerala will celebrate Onam, the state’s festival, alongside the commissioning of the Vizhinjam International Seaport in September—a long-cherished dream for the region. Prior to its official launch, the Rs7525 crore port, built by the Adani Ports and SEZ under the DBFOT scheme, will undergo a month-long trial run.

 This is India’s first semi-automated container port. We plan to test vessel tracking, management systems, and crane controls under various scenarios over the next month, before the full commissioning by September, Diviya Iyer, managing director of the port, said.

 To mark the beginning of the trial run, the mothership M V San Fernando berthed at the port at around 9.30 am on Thursday. The vessel was welcomed by hundreds of people waving national flags and tugboats at the port which gave water salute. It will be accorded a State reception on Friday.

The 300-meter-long Marshall Island-flagged M V San Fernando carrying 2,000 containers has arrived from Xiamen Port in China. After unloading around 1900 containers, the ship will depart for Colombo.

The country’s first international deep-water transshipment port is located 10 nautical miles from the international shipping route. Other advantages of the port are minimal littoral drift along the coast and virtually no requirement of any maintenance dredging.

 The port has a natural depth of more than 18 meters, scalable up to 20 meters, which is crucial to allow entry of large vessels and motherships.

The port is expected to compete with Colombo, Singapore, and Dubai for trans-shipment traffic.

In 2015, the Congress-led UDF government signed the deal with the Adani Group to construct the port. Under the agreement, Adani would invest Rs 2,454 crore in the project, while Rs 1,635 crore would be mobilized from the State and Central governments as a viability gap fund. Additionally, the Kerala government provided 500 acres of land for the project.

The port is also planning second and third phases at an estimated cost of Rs 9,500 crore. The soon-to-be-commissioned first phase can handle up to 1 million TEU (Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units). This capacity will increase to 6.2 million TEU in the subsequent phases.

The DBFOT deal is for 40 years, with provisions for extending it by another 20 years.