Spotted: Maersk Gibraltar Becomes Largest Vessel to Call Pipavav

On June 16, the 10,100 TEU Maersk Gibraltar arrived at APM Terminals Pipavav in India, marking both the first call of Maersk Line’s ME1 Service to the facility and a new record for the largest vessel ever to call Pipavav Port.

Built at Jiangsu Yangzi Xinfu shipyard in China, the containership features a length of 337 meters and a width of 48.2 meters and is part of the new loop linking Europe, the Middle East and India.

The service provides connections to Pipavav, Salalah, Jeddah, Port Tangier, Felixstowe, Antwerp, Bremerhaven, Wilhelmshaven, Rotterdam, Algeciras, Aqaba, and Jebel Ali.

An expansion at APM Terminals Pipavav was recently completed by strengthening the existing berth, performing additional dredging, adding three new post-Panamax cranes to accommodate ultra-large container vessels and four new rubber-tire gantry cranes. This has increased the facility’s annual throughput capacity to 1.35 million TEUs, APM Terminals said.

Container throughput at the port was 682,000 TEUs in 2016, along with approximately three million tons of bulk cargo. Current annual general cargo capacities include five million metric tons of dry bulk, two million metric tons of liquid bulk and approximately 250,000 passenger cars.