Riyadh - The Saudi Ports Authority (Mawani) has announced the arrival of giant container vessel MSC Loreto at Jeddah Islamic Port. Spanning 400 meters in length, 61.3 meters in width, 33 meters in depth, and 17 meters in draft, the 24,346-TEU ship is the largest ever to have entered the Kingdom’s waters. Featuring a 24,000-square-meter deck area and a service speed of 22.5 knots, MSC Loreto is designed to carry a wide range of cargo from raw materials to finished products. Part of a six-ship fleet built by China-based Yangzi Xinfu Shipbuilding for the world’s largest container liner, the mega vessel is equipped with cutting-edge capabilities to optimize its consumption of energy and fuel.

By berthing the world’s biggest container vessel, Jeddah Islamic Port has further consolidated its growing status as a world-class maritime hub at the crossroads of East-West trade. Currently undergoing extensive development and refurbishment works that involve the deepening of approach channels, turning basins, and waterways alongside a throughput expansion at the South Container Terminal to 13 million TEUs by 2030, the Kingdom’s southern trade gateway is crucial to the nation’s ambition of harboring a global logistics platform offering reliable and cost-efficient end-to-end solutions. The largest container vessel to visit the Red Sea hub before this landmark occasion was CMA CGM Jacques Saade, the world’s largest LNG-powered boxship that boasts a loading capacity of 23,000 TEUs.