KOCHI: Opening up new opportunities in coastal shipping, coastal cargo vessel M V Sabarimalai carrying a 5,000-tonne consignment of steel products from Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL) reached Kochi on Sunday evening. This is the first steel consignment of RINL moved via the coastal route from their plant at Visakhapatnam; till now, consignments for distribution in and around Kerala arrived at by rail.
Coastal shipping is one among the initiatives under Sagarmala, the flagship development project of the Union Ministry of Shipping.
The ship left Visakhapatnam Port on November 8. As per the current plans, around 10,000 tonnes of steel consignment from RINL is expected to be sent via coastal shipping every month. Companies like SAIL and JINDAL are also expected to start such services in the near future, giving additional cargo volume to the port.
On arrival, the ship captain was welcomed by the traffic manager in the presence of other officers of the Port, RINL Kochi, Shreyas Shipping and the stevedore. The arrival marketing team of the port had been in discussions with RINL authorities for more than a year over shipping consignments to Kochi.