JOHOR BAHRU: Port of Tanjung Pelepas (PTP) becomes the first port in Southeast Asia to welcome Evergreen Marine Corporation latest and world's largest container ship, Ever Ace, as part of the vessel maiden voyage in the region.

The vessel arrived at the port around 12 noon yesterday.

PTP chairman and MMC Corporation Bhd group managing director Datuk Seri Che Khalib Mohamad Noh said the berthing of Ever Ace at PTP reflected strong confidence by vessel operators towards the port's ability and commitment in serving the needs of its customers.

"Despite COVID-19 pandemic and various challenges and issues faced by the port industry worldwide which indirectly contributes to the volatility in volume in port throughput, PTP continues to perform commendably by continuing to register organic growth, which subsequently put the port at number 15 amongst world's top port ranking," he said in a statement today.

Meanwhile, PTP chief executive officer Marco Neelsen said the port would continue to leverage through its strategic positioning as a global regional transhipment hub as well as a competitive edge in its customer segmentation to provide value-added quality services for its customers.

"Over the years, PTP has progressively strengthened its position due to its investments in new equipment and efforts to improve container handling capacity and capability to further empowering our service capacities to meet the market demand and growing requirement by its customers," he said.

He said this would ensure the new generation of ultra-large container vessels could safely navigate to the port while at the same time guarantee minimal deviation from their sailing schedule.

Ever Ace is the first of Evergreen Line's 24,000-twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) class container ships, an A-type vessel that is close to 400 metres in length and 61.5 metres wide that can cruise at a speed of up to 22.6 knots with a nominal carrying capacity of 23,992 TEUs.

The vessel, which is on its maiden voyage for Evergreen Line's China-Europe-Mediterranean (CEM) Service, was previously berthed at Colombo, Sri Lanka and is scheduled next for Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

-- BERNAMA