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Newly dredged Suez Canal Terminal welcomes 18,300-TEU Maren Maersk

THE Suez Canal Container Terminal (SCCT) at Port Said East has accommodated the second Triple-E class vessel, the 18,300 TEU capacity Maren Maersk, to call at an Egyptian port now that its channel and port basin have been dredged to a depth of 18.5 metres.

Maersk's APM Terminals, the majority shareholder of SCCT, partnered with the Egyptian government and local authorities to complete the dredging project, which is part of a plan to raise the terminal's annual container throughput capacity to 5.4 million TEU. A total of US$850 million has been invested in SCCT since the terminal opened in 2004.

SCCT director of Public and Government Relations, Hany Al Nady, was quoted as saying in a report by Port Technology: "In partnership with the Egyptian government, we are transforming Port Said East into a strategic container handling axis for the region."

DP World recently announced that it wanted to set up a dry port near the capital city of Cairo.

There are at present a total of 388 containerships of 10,000 TEU and above in service in the global fleet, including 47 with capacities of 18,000 TEU or more, with another 58 on order. Vessels of this size are primarily deployed on Asia-Europe trade routes which transit the Suez Canal.