San Antonio, April 01, 2024.  The largest container ship to ever arrive in Chile, the MS APL Esplanade, has docked at San Antonio Terminal Internacional (STI), terminal operated by SAAM Terminals and SSA Marine. It is owned by the shipping company CMA CGM and measures 369 meters in length. This is the second time this vessel has come to Chile and the first time in the central zone.

“Our terminal is prepared with state-of-the-art technology and equipment to be able to handle this type of vessel. Today we are the most efficient terminal on the west coast and milestones like this reinforce not only the capacity and infrastructure of our facilities, but also the excellence that our employees display on a daily basis,” said STI’s general manager, Rodrigo Galleguillos.

From an operational standpoint, Carlos Gómez, the terminal’s operations manager, commented, “At STI we have always demonstrated a high capacity to adapt to new challenges. The industry continually requires us to operate at the highest standards and we have demonstrated this by being the first terminal to receive ships of these dimensions thanks to our infrastructure and highly qualified equipment.

The ship, at 369 meters long and 51 meters wide (beam), is 69 meters longer than the Costanera Center building and 45 meters longer than the Eiffel Tower, and almost four times the size of the Statue of Liberty in New York.

This vessel joins other large vessels already received by the terminal, such as the MSC Chiyo and the MSC Orion at 366 meters each. In early 2023, STI acquired two new ship-to-shore (STS) cranes and two rubber tyred gantry (RTG) cranes, making it the only port in Chile capable of welcoming two of these vessels simultaneously.

Docking details

The unloading and loading operations took place at STI site 1, where the vessel will remain until April 2. It will be served by 4 STS cranes, with more than 4,800 movements planned to complete the process. For this operation, STI will assign 30 work crews, totaling 690 people.

The maneuvers for the ship, which has a capacity of nearly 14,000 TEUs, includes unloading almost 900 full containers and loading another 300 full and 3,652 empty containers bound for the East.