Giant CMA CGM Ship Makes Maiden Call At Westports

News was prepared under the information support of Online Daily Newspaper on Hellenic and international Shipping "Hellenic Shipping News".

29 Nov 2009

As an early appetizer for 2010, one of the world's largest containership, the 13,300-TEU CMA CGM Christophe Colomb made its maiden call at Westports Malaysia Container Terminal last Sunday.
It represents the biggest vessel to arrive at Port Klang todate, Westports said in a statement on Sunday.
Although it was an ad hoc call, Westports operations staffs were fully prepared to meet the challenge and duly displayed their skills and productivity rate to complete the task with gross crane productivity of 37 moves per hour. Westports Executive Director, Ruben Emir Gnanalingam said: "The arrival of Christophe Colomb proves CMA CGM Group's confidence in the ability of Westports to handle mega-sized vessels.
"Our skilful workforce and state-of-the-art port facilities can handle the growing sizes of container vessels which are likely to make more calls at our port next year onwards," he said in the statement.
"Christophe Colomb also proves CMA CGM's ability to move forward in the current economic context. This new giant is a strategic asset for the Group while volume and freight rates on the Asia to Europe market are recovering. This modern vessel enables the Group to meet its growing customer demand on this key market while ensuring economics of scale," said Ruben.
The 365.5-metre long, 51.2 meters wide eco-friendly vessel is fully equipped with the latest technology, designed to optimise hydrodynamics and maximise propulsion.
Use of an electronically controlled engine meanwhile helps reduce oil consumption by 25 per cent, resulting in a two to four per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions.
In addition, CMA CGM CHRISTOPHE COLOMB is equipped with a Fast Oil Recovery System, which enables bunkers to be rapidly recovered at any time, hence significantly limiting the environmental consequences should there be an incident at sea.
The Christophe Colomb is part of the FAL 7, a European service operated jointly by CMA CGM and Maersk, a move aimed at boosting its utilization.

Source: Bernama