MSC Sixin, operated by Mediterranean Shipping Company has a capacity of 23,656 TEUs, the second biggest vessel in the world and the largest ship to berth at any terminal in Barcelona.
“The arrival of MSC Sixin at Barcelona is the start of a new era in our container sea trade,” said Guillermo Belcastro, CEO of Hutchison Ports BEST. “MSC Sixin operating at BEST is symbolic of the effort of both shipping lines and port operators who continue to work together, in spite of the current social and economic world situation, pushing efficiency levels to even higher standards to enable goods to arrive at their destination.”
Mr. Belcastro added that “our terminal’s location and state-of-the-art equipment enables us to efficiently handle vessels of this size in the swiftest time possible. We are delighted to become the first ever terminal in Barcelona to welcome a 23K+ vessel. We would specially like to thank MSC as the ship owner, and all the partners within the 2M alliance (MSC and MAERSK), for trusting in BEST to accomplish this historic milestone.”
The operational differentiating factor enabling us to welcome these super vessels, is not only the physical dimensions of the terminal – Hutchison Ports BEST is the only container terminal in Barcelona with a depth of at least 16 meters – the whole length of its 1.500 mberth – but also the vessel operating rate. Operations of almost ten thousand moves require a high number of mega cranes working at the same time with a very high operational performance rate per crane, and these operations also need to be controlled by a highly efficient operational system. Hutchison Ports BEST is used to operating with up to 8 cranes simultaneously which under the control of nGen, Hutchison Ports’ proven terminal control system, can achieve productivities per crane of over 40 moves per hour. Usually, operations of 10.000 moves can be completed in a couple of days, a huge contrast when compared to more than 4 to 5 days in other ports, representing significant reductions in terms of transit time, port costs and the CO2 emissions due to fuel consumption, to arrive on time at the ship’s next port of call.
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