Gulftainer, a privately owned, independent terminal operating and logistics company, has marked a new milestone in container moves at Khorfakkan Container Terminal in Sharjah.

The company completed 4,073 container moves in a single 12-hour shift.

This achievement has defied industry belief that 6,000 moves in a 24-hour period target for shipping lines since the inception of the mega-ship is not possible, the company said.

The full operation consisted of an 8,288 container/13,005 teu (twenty-foot equivalent unit) exchange, inclusive of 10-high deck stowage, on the call of the CMA-CGM Georg Forster, one of the French Shipping Line’s 18,000 teu capacity vessels.

The terminal staff completed the operation in only 36.4 hours, resulting in gross moves per hour (GMPH) of 227.7 and berth moves per hour (BMPH) of 223.4, allowing the vessel to sail ahead of its proforma schedule with a grand total of 15,765 teu on board, bound for its next port of call in Yantian, China.

Daniel Wright, Gulftainer’s terminal manager at KCT, said: “KCT is renowned for its high productivity levels, and has demonstrated its ability to handle mega-vessels. This new milestone further establishes its credentials as mega-ship ready, and underlines the skills of the staff at the terminal who are ready to complete such a large call in record time.”

Nicolas Sartini, group senior vice president of CMA-CGM Marseille, said: “We are always impressed how KCT is able to constantly improve its productivity. This further validates our choice to select Khorfakkan as our main hub for cargo moving to the Middle East from Europe and Asia.”

Earlier this year, KCT set a new record for handling unloading and loading of a single vessel call at 19,561 teu and it recently received the ‘Shipping Port of the Year’ honour at the 2015 Supply Chain & Transport Awards (Scata).

Due to its unique location, the terminal has been one of the most important transshipment hubs for the Arabian Gulf, the Indian Subcontinent, the Gulf of Oman and the East African markets.