DP World’s flagship Jebel Ali Port has emerged as the world's most productive port in the latest port productivity report compiled by the reputed US-based Journal of Commerce (JOC).

The rankings are based on the average moves of containers per ship, per hour, in 2013 as reported by shipping lines themselves, representing more than 75 per cent of global vessel capacity.

Jebel Ali Port led the industry with an average of 138 moves per vessel hour (MPH), said the JOC in its report.  

According to the report, Jebel Ali Port beat 483 ports world-wide, and topped the list of the world’s leading 25 ports after analysis of more than 150,000 port calls.

Importantly, given the move to larger and larger ships, Jebel Ali also tops the list of ports handling ships with capacity of more than 8,000 TEU (twenty foot equivalent container units), with an impressive 163 mph, the report added.  

Commenting on the ranking, DP World chairman Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, said: "We have invested significantly in infrastructure, equipment, technology and training at Jebel Ali to ensure we can serve our customers’ efficiently and help them realise the benefits of scale the new, larger vessels bring."

"It is very pleasing to see that this effort is making a difference and we are very proud of our UAE Region team for achieving these excellent results," he noted.

“Customer service is at the heart of everything we do and we constantly invest to ensure we stay ahead of demand so our customers can maximise the efficiency of the supply chain and improve their competitiveness,” he added.

Last month, Jebel Ali welcomed the first scheduled vessel at its new container terminal 3. Once fully operational next year, the world’s most modern container terminal will add a further two million TEU capacity which will be able to accommodate ten mega vessels of 18,000 TEU simultaneously.

In the first nine months, DP World’s terminals in the UAE had handled 11.4 million TEU, representing growth of 12.6 per cent year-on-year. Yet another new record was achieved with 4 million TEU handled in the third quarter, said Bin Sulayem.

The JOC report defines productivity as the average of the gross moves per hour for each call recorded last year. Gross moves per hour for a single vessel call is defined as the total container moves (on-load, offload and repositioning) divided by the number of hours for which the vessel is at berth.-TradeArabia News Service