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The 366-metre container vessel MSC Beryl left Vizhinjam International Seaport in Kerala on 1 September 2026 carrying the port's first export consignment, bound for Valencia in Spain.
The consignment was eight containers, holding packaged food products from Thiruvananthapuram and seafood from Kochi.
The vessel sails on the Mediterranean Shipping Company's Himalaya Express service, which links Indian ports with European markets, giving Kerala exporters a direct sailing without an intermediate transhipment hub.
Full export-import (EXIM) operations at Vizhinjam had been formally launched on 18 August 2026 by Kerala Chief Minister V.D. Satheesan.
Vizhinjam is a deep-water port near Thiruvananthapuram developed by Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd under a public-private partnership; its Phase 2 expansion is to lift capacity to 5.7 million TEUs by December 2028.
The container ship San Fernando makes the first-ever call at Vizhinjam, marking the start of trial operations.
MSC Irina, among the largest container vessels in the world, calls at Vizhinjam, demonstrating the port's deep-water draught.
Kerala Chief Minister V.D. Satheesan formally launches EXIM operations and flags off the first two export containers for Europe, carrying food products from Nilamel and from Aspinwall in Kollam district.
MSC Beryl departs with the port's first full export consignment of eight containers for Valencia, Spain.
Target date for completion of the Rs 16,000-crore Phase 2, lifting capacity to 5.7 million TEUs.
Transhipment is the transfer of cargo from one ship to another partway through its journey. Very large container vessels — the 'mother ships' that run the long-haul routes between Asia and Europe — need deep water to berth. Ports that cannot take them handle only smaller feeder vessels, so an export container has to be carried first to a deep-water hub elsewhere, unloaded, and reloaded onto the mother ship. Every extra handling adds cost, time and risk of damage, and the fee is earned by the foreign hub rather than by an Indian port. A deep-water port on the Arabian Sea coast changes that arithmetic: the mother vessel can berth directly, and the exporter's box goes onto the ship that will carry it all the way. That is what an export sailing to Valencia, without an intermediate hub, demonstrates.
Simple Analogy: It is the difference between a direct flight and one with a change of aircraft. The connecting airport collects a fee and adds hours to your journey; a direct service removes both.
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Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit — the standard measure of container ship and container port capacity, based on the volume of a twenty-foot-long shipping container.
Transfer of cargo from one vessel to another at an intermediate port before it reaches its final destination.
Export-import operations — the movement of a country's own cargo out of and into a port, as distinct from transhipment of third-country cargo.
A model in which a private developer finances, builds and operates public infrastructure under a concession agreement with the government, which retains ownership of the asset.
The depth of water a vessel needs to float; a deep-draught port can accommodate the largest mother vessels.