World’s largest fuel-efficient container ship MSC Turkiye calls at Vizhinjam

The ship will leave for Ghana on Thursday evening after discharging around 2,000 TEUs containers

The newly-commissioned Vizhinjam International Seaport has achieved a new milestone with MSC Turkiye — the world’s largest fuel-efficient container ship — making a port of call here on Wednesday. MSC Turkiye, run by the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), is a modern engineering marvel, with the vessel measuring 399.9 metres in length, 61.3 metres in width, and 33.5 metres in depth. The ship can load about 24,346 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), making it one of the largest container ships ever built in the world.

The ship that berthed at the port at 5.10 p.m. will leave for Ghana on Thursday evening after discharging around 2,000 TEUs containers here. This is the 257th ship that called at the port since the facility began commercial operations, including the trial operation period which began on July 12, 2024. Although the port was not officially commissioned, the seaport had handled a record volume of over 5.2 lakh TEUs containers during the trial period and subsequent four months of commercial operations.

Vizhinjam International Seaport, operated by Adani Ports and SEZ Ltd (APSEZ), is India’s first mega transhipment container terminal. The world-class, future-ready port is the only transhipment hub in the Indian subcontinent closest to the international shipping routes and centrally located on the Indian coastline. It is just 10 nautical miles (19 km) from the busy east-west shipping channel that connects Europe, the Persian Gulf, Southeast Asia and the Far East.

MSC Claude Girardet, an ultra-large container vessel (ULCV) of the MSC that docked at the Vizhinjam International Seaport last September, was the previous largest container vessel to visit India.