The Karachi Port handled 48,724 tonnes of cargo comprising 43,062 tonnes of import cargo and 5,662 tonnes of export cargo including 1,268 loaded & empty containers during the last 24 hours ended at 0700 hours on Tuesday. The total import cargo of 43,062 tonnes comprised 14,478 tonnes of containerised cargo; 1,840 tonnes of general cargo; 22,098 tonnes of bulk cargo: 1,372 tonnes of soda ash; 5,027 tonnes of DAP; 15,699 tonnes of coal and 4,646 tonnes of oil/liquid cargo.

The total export cargo of 5,662 tonnes comprised 2,018 tonnes of containerised cargo; 604 tonnes of general cargo; 3,040 tonnes of bulk cargo: 261 tonnes of cement and 1,205 tonnes of sugar and 1,574 tonnes of rice. As many as 1,268 containers comprising 1,130 containers import and 138 containers export were handled during the last 24 hours on Tuesday.

The brakeup of imported containers shows 210 of 20's and 454 of 40's loaded while nil of 20's and 6 of 40's empty containers, whereas that of exported containers shows 57 of 20's and 23 of 40's loaded containers while 5 of 20's and 15 of 40's empty containers were handled during the business hours.

There are four ships namely Lodestar Genesis, Rabigh Sunshine, MOL Direction and Hong Qing with two oil tankers, one container ship and one general cargo ship respectively sailed out to sea during the reported period. There are five vessels viz STX Patraikos, Hyundai Highness, Xin Nan Sha, Abdul latif S and Heilan Aroma with three container ships, one bulk cargo ship and one general cargo ship respectively are currently at the berths.

A container ship namely Xin Nan Sha sailed out to sea on Tuesday, while four ships namely STX Patraikos, Hyundai Highness, Kota Gemar and Bhairavi with three container ships and one general cargo ship respectively are expected to sail on Wednesday. One container vessel viz Kota Gemar due to arrive on Tuesday, while seven vessels viz APL Brisbane, UAFL Zanziber, Naxihe, Puma, Al-Radiyah, Pacific Ace and AAL Borg with four container ships, one HSD oil tanker, one coal carrier and one project cargo ship respectively are due to arrive on Wednesday.

PORT QASIMA cargo volume of 40,700 tonnes comprising 35,416 tonnes of import cargo and 5,284 tonnes of export cargo inclusive nil loaded & empty containers (TEUs) was handled at Port Qasim during the last 24 hours on Tuesday.

The total import cargo of 35,416 tonnes includes 18,191 tonnes of diesel oil; 10,125 tonnes of coal and 7,100 tonnes of chemicals. The total export cargo of 5,284 tonnes includes 5,154 tonnes of cement and 130 tonnes of wheat. A chemical carrier namely MV STX Hero sailed out to sea on Tuesday morning. A total number of six vessels viz MV Princess-K, MV Sai Eternity, MV Harsanadi, MV STX Hero, MV Shang Dong Hai Chang and MT Overseas Leyte are currently occupying berths to load/offload cement, wheat, chemicals, coal and diesel oil respectively during the last 24 hours.

As many as six ships namely CGM Debussy, Nedlloyd, Kalamas, Beautiful Rena, Meta and Al-Salam-II with containers, furnace oil, rice, wheat and diesel oil respectively are currently at the outer anchorage of Port Qasim. There are three vessels viz CGM Debussy, Nedlloyd and Hanjin Sandisgo with containers are expected to take berths at Qasim International Containers Terminal respectively on Tuesday.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2012