Vizhinjam Port Near Thiruvananthapuram Handled a Record 141,759 TEU in August 2026 and Began Direct Export and Import Cargo on 18 August, With an Expansion to 5.7 Million TEU Targeted for December 2028

Vizhinjam International Seaport, on the coast south of Thiruvananthapuram, handled 141,759 TEU in August 2026, the highest monthly figure in its history, according to a 5 September 2026 report in India Shipping News. TEU, short for twenty-foot equivalent unit, is the standard measure of a shipping container. On 18 August 2026 the port also began direct export and import cargo, after 20 months of commercial operation as mainly a transshipment hub, the place where a container comes off one ship and goes onto another.

Kerala’s government owns the port company, and Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) builds and runs the terminal under a public-private concession. The state’s own profile, with its economy and ports, is in Kerala at a glance.

Why the site was chosen

The port’s own website says it lies just 10 nautical miles (about 19 km) from the international East-West shipping corridor, the route linking the Far East, the Persian Gulf and Europe. A Press Information Bureau (PIB) backgrounder of 2 May 2025 gives it a natural deep draft of nearly 20 metres, and The Tribune’s wire report of 9 April 2025 gives a natural depth of 20 metres. The Tribune’s September 2026 report puts the natural draft at 18 to 20 metres. Draft is the depth a loaded ship needs under its hull, so deep water close to shore means very large ships can berth without constant dredging.

The first phase has an 800-metre container berth, eight quay cranes, which unload the ships, and 24 automated yard cranes, according to the Tribune report. A transshipment terminal lives on speed, and automation is how it gets it: ships spend less time at the berth, so more of them fit into a year.

From the first mother ship to the dedication

The Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways received the first mother ship, the MV San Fernando, on 12 July 2024. A mother ship is a large ocean-going vessel that carries containers between the big hubs, and PIB listed this one at up to 9,000 TEU. In a written reply of 6 August 2024, the ministry said the concessionaire had told it the port would be commissioned by December 2024.

Phase I began commercial operations on 3 December 2024 with a designed capacity of 1 million TEU, according to the ministry’s reply to the Lok Sabha on 13 February 2026. The concession agreement behind it was signed on 17 August 2015, and the port’s website records construction starting on 5 December 2015.

On 9 April 2025 the MSC Turkiye called, a ship of 24,346 TEU and 399.9 metres in length. The Tribune’s report calls it the largest container ship to have docked at an Indian port, and says the previous record holder, MSC Claude Girardet at 24,116 TEU, had also called at Vizhinjam. The Prime Minister dedicated the port to the nation on 2 May 2025. PIB put its cost at Rs 8,800 crore.

The numbers since

Onmanorama reported on 27 August 2025 that the port had passed 1 million TEU in under nine months of commercial operation, with more than 460 vessel calls, 26 of them ultra-large container vessels up to 400 metres long. By the ministry’s account, the port had handled more than 1.43 million TEU by 24 January 2026, at over 130 per cent of its designed capacity.

India Shipping News, citing figures from the port, reported 51 vessel calls and 141,759 TEU in August 2026, and a cumulative 1,108 calls and 2.34 million TEU over 25 months. A month later, on 25 September 2026, the port’s operator announced that the MSC Loreto had moved 17,262 TEU in a single call, against a previous record of 11,116 TEU from August. The ANI report in The Tribune gives about 17,400 containers for the same call, and the August report gives 11,011 TEU for the August record vessel, MSC Palak, so the exact record figures vary by outlet.

The operator also puts current annual capacity at 1.6 million TEU, against the 1 million TEU the ministry gave for Phase I.

Why India wanted its own transshipment hub

In transshipment, cargo for Indian ports travels to a hub on a large ship and moves on aboard smaller feeder ships. Until Vizhinjam, the hubs used for Indian cargo were abroad. In his 2 May 2025 speech, the Prime Minister said 75 per cent of India’s transshipment had been conducted at foreign ports, with a revenue loss to the country. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, a former Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, and K M Chandrasekhar, a former Cabinet Secretary, wrote in The Tribune on 19 May 2025 that almost 70 per cent of container traffic destined for India was transshipped through Colombo and other foreign ports. The two figures are measured differently and neither source says how.

Kerala’s Chief Minister said at the 24 January 2026 ceremony: “Vizhinjam is currently serving mainly Indian Container Ports as a Transhipment port.” The Ports Minister said at the same event that expansion would reduce India’s dependence on foreign hubs.

The Great Nicobar project is another transshipment port the government is planning, in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Who paid and who holds it

Onmanorama’s 2 July 2026 breakdown puts the first-phase cost at Rs 8,867.14 crore. Kerala’s share was Rs 5,595.34 crore, covering the breakwater, connections, rehabilitation and land. APSEZ put in Rs 2,454 crore, and the Centre’s viability gap funding was Rs 817.80 crore. Viability gap funding is a one-time grant to a project that would not otherwise earn enough to attract a private builder. The Lok Sabha reply of 13 February 2026 confirms the Rs 817.80 crore as fully spent, and lists loans to Kerala under the capital investment scheme of Rs 145.07 crore for 2023-24, Rs 1,134.52 crore for 2024-25 and Rs 341.30 crore sanctioned for 2025-26.

The concession runs 40 years from takeover, to 2055. Onmanorama reports that delays in the first phase went to arbitration, and that a supplementary agreement of 28 November 2024 settled them, with the state condoning the delay and APSEZ withdrawing its claims. The term moved to 2060. Meeting the December 2028 deadline would let APSEZ ask for a further 20 years, to 2080, subject to the state’s approval. Onmanorama adds that Kerala’s share of the port’s user-fee income begins in 2034 and rises by one percentage point a year to 40 per cent, and that the Centre’s grant has to be reimbursed by the state.

The expansion and the MSC stake

Work on Phases II, III and IV started on 24 January 2026, and the ministry says they now run as a single programme. Plans include a continuous 2-kilometre berth, which the ministry calls the longest in India, a breakwater lengthened to 3.88 km and room for ships of up to 28,000 TEU. The port is meant to handle five mother ships at once and up to 5.7 million TEU a year, with completion targeted for December 2028. The ministry says the supplementary agreement moved the schedule forward by nearly 17 years.

The ministry puts total investment at about Rs 16,000 crore, including about Rs 7,398 crore for the expansion phases. Business Standard, as relayed by Hellenic Shipping News, says APSEZ announced Rs 16,000 crore for the expansion itself. The two readings differ.

On 30 June 2026 APSEZ announced that Terminal Investment Limited, the terminal arm of the shipping line MSC, would take 49 per cent of Adani Vizhinjam Port Private Limited for about $1.4 billion ($1.397 billion), its share of a $2.85 billion enterprise value. APSEZ keeps 51 per cent and control. The deal needs regulatory approvals, which Onmanorama says include the Competition Commission of India and can take up to six months.

The Week reported, citing industry sources, that about 99 per cent of ships calling at the port were MSC’s, and that other lines had asked for berth slots and could not get them. It also said the agreement gives MSC no exclusive rights, and that other lines can use the port at standard tariffs, subject to slots.

Direct trade starts

The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs gave final clearance to export and import cargo in an order dated 24 July 2026, Maritime Gateway reported. The first operations began on 18 August 2026, when Kerala’s Chief Minister flagged off two containers bound for Europe. Akashvani reported that shipments to Europe, which previously took nearly two months, are expected to reach their destination in 28 days.

Only full container loads are allowed for now, with imports moved to the importer within 48 hours of landing. There is no container freight station, the shed where loose cargo is packed into containers, so loose cargo waits. Maritime Gateway says APSEZ plans a 100-acre station near the port and the Kerala government is building one too. The Week reported on 17 August 2026 that the first state station will sit on about 5.5 acres of Trivandrum Spinning Mills land, and a separate KSIE facility is expected to start operating within three to four months. The wider trade picture is in India’s trade corridors and agreements. The state’s Mission Samudra, launched on 18 August, has a Rs 400 crore starting fund, according to The Week.

What is still being built

The ministry’s 2024 reply scheduled the port’s rail link for March 2028. The Week reports the port uses a temporary approach road to National Highway 66, that the permanent interchange has not been built, and that the Trivandrum Outer Ring Road has, in the words of the port company’s chief executive, “been delayed indefinitely.” The Road Transport Ministry told Parliament on 12 August 2026 that a revised project report exists and the investment decision is pending.