Chittagong Port moving forward
Chittagong Port-- the gateway to Bangladesh-- made history last week when it received heavy lifts weighing 127mt each. The port until now never allowed any heavy lift to be discharged on its quay if it weighed above 600lbs or 272 kgs per sft.
However, MV Wiebke -- a vessel operated by SAL Germany-- called at Chittagong with five heavy lifts for a power plant in Bangladesh. The Chittagong Port Authority on first application refused to allow discharging the same at its quay for carriage by trailers as the quays do not have the load bearing capacity for 127mt units. But after a number of meetings and deliberations, the agents for the vessel were able to convince the port authorities to find a solution. Finally, the port engineers came up with a novel idea of putting steel plates on the quay along the trailer's way, so the combined weight of cargo and trailer was spread over the dimensions of the steel plates instead of centring on spaces of trailer wheels. The idea worked perfectly and not even a scratch mark was caused by the exercise. The only problem, however, was the delay in discharging the heavy lifts that was not caused by the ship or the port but because of lack of equipments in Bangladesh. There is only one trailer that can carry 127mt and the heavy lifts were discharged off the trailer at the power plant at Chittagong Export Processing Zone manually in the absence of heavy lifting cranes.
The vessel MV Wiebke arrived on 19 April and sailed from Chittagong on 22 April 2008 after successfully discharging the cargo that at one stage looked impossible. The event proves that there is no alternative to professionalism and teamwork.
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