WB: Largest ship laden with coal arrives at Kolkata port

This is the first time that a ship of this weight has arrived at the Kolkata port. The ship has brought raw coal from Newport in America for sale by the Steel Authority of India.

Kolkata: History was made at Kolkata's Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port on Monday as a ship carrying coal weighing about 170,000 tons anchored at Sagar Anchorage in the port in the largest cargo here. The vessel named MV Mineral Yangfan about 300 metres long and 50 metres wide weighs about 70,300 metric tons and is the size of two football fields.

This is the first time that a ship of this size has arrived at the Kolkata port. The ship has brought raw coal from Newport in America for sale by the Steel Authority of India. It will take an entire week to unload the cargo from the ship by the authorities at Kolkata Port under the initiative of the Haldia Railway Authority. The coal will be supplied to the factories via train from the Haldia Port.

The port authority has already started unloading the coal from the ship with the help of two huge floating cranes. Currently, two such ships will be brought to the port every month. It is learnt that 15 lakh metric tons of cargo will arrive at this port annually.