Three ships depart Ctg port sans 1,400 TEUs containers

AS Sicilia leaving Chattogram port on Monday without being fully loaded

Three ships left Chattogram port on Monday without being fully loaded as the containers of pre-scheduled export goods failed to reach the dock due to the cargo transport strike.

Express Lhotse, AS Sicilia and Kalamati Trader are the three feeder ships that departed the port without carrying export containers of around 1400 twenty-foot equivalent units.  

The Express Lhotse ship with a capacity of about 1,500 TEUs was scheduled to leave the port on Sunday but finally left the port on Monday morning with only 872 TEUs containers.

The ship was kept at the port for an additional 24 hours with an extra charge of around $3,000 with a hope that the pre-scheduled containers would be able to reach the port once the transport strike was called off.

Saiful Islam, deputy general manager of Sea Consortium Bangladesh, which is the shipping agent of Express Lhotse, said, “We are committed to the exporters to deliver their goods to the mother vessels at the transshipment port in Colombo.”

It would be really difficult for us to load the remaining containers onto the next ship, which is totally booked with pre-scheduled containers, he added.

With a capacity of 1,400 TEUs, AS Sicilia also left the port on the same day with only 900 TEUs containers. The ship was also on standby for an extra-day with a hope to get all the scheduled containers at the port soon after the strike was called off.

Ali Hossain, manager (operation) of Crown Shipping Line private ltd, which is the shipping agent of AS Sicilia feeder vessel on Chattogram-Colombo route, said, “As we thought that the strike would come to an end by Sunday, SA Sicilia stayed at the dock for another day. But no container-laden cargo reached the Port as of yesterday.”

“Since, there is no reason to continue our stay here, the ship finally sailed for Colombo on Monday.”

Likewise, the Kalamati Trader also departed the port on Monday leaving out around 300 TEUs of pre-scheduled export containers.

On the other hand, four more ships-TR Aramis, OEL Colombo, SOL Hind and Bangkok Spirit -are scheduled to leave the port on Tuesday.

But the pre-scheduled export containers could not reach these ships as of Monday.

Muntasir Rubayat, head of operations of GBX Logistics Ltd, which is the shipping agent of SOL Hind, said, “Though Monday was our scheduled day to leave the port but we decided to wait for the containers of export goods, which are yet to arrive.”

Although there would be a huge financial loss for the delay, we decided to stay one more day as we did not want to go with almost an empty shop, he added.

Chittagong Port Authority Secretary Omar Faruque said, “If shipping agents want their vessels to keep waiting at the port’s jetty, they can do so until their pre-scheduled containers are loaded.”

The transport strike in the country began last Friday in protest against the diesel price hike. Since then, there has been a stoppage of goods delivery including containers to and from the Chittagong port to bring goods by road. 

As a result, the export sector is under threat due to the closure of container transport as about 90 percent of the country’s exports are filled with containers.