A first in Adabiya Port: Our friends at TCI, the Egyptian terminal operator unit of AD Ports, notched a first with their recent unloading of 75k metric tons of slag from a Panamax vessel in Adabiya Port.

Why does this matter? Adabiya Port can’t typically handle a Panamax vessel because of draft limitations — the water just isn’t deep enough relative to the depth of a Panamax ship’s hull, which goes down 12-13 meters below the waterline when the ship is fully loaded. The more we grow our exports (and import of critical production inputs needed to sustain them), the more we’re going to need to be creative solving problems like this.

How can you get around it? Neither of the usual options are very attractive to a client wanting to get goods into port. It boils down to (a) send the cargo on more than one smaller vessel with drafts that allows them to come into your port of choice or (b) steam for a different port, unload, and then truck the cargo overland.

What happened here? TCI performed a lighterage operation — its team met the vessel offshore and used floating cranes and barges to offload the cargo at sea. Once lighter, the Panamax vessel had a lesser draft and was able to sail into port and finish up the unloading process at berth.

What’s TCI? The company operates container, bulk, break bulk, cargo handling, and trucking from the ports of Adabiya, Sokhna, Safaga, and Port Said.

Even if you’re not a shipping nerd like us, we think you’ll find the video of the operation cool (watch, runtime: 2:07). (And no, you don’t need to have grown up with a copy of Jane’s Fighting Ships on your bedside table to make heads or tails of it.)

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