NSW PORTS this week welcomed the longest containership to ever visit Port Botany at DP World Australia’s terminal.

Soroe Maersk is deployed as an empty sweeper to evacuate empty Maersk containers from Australia to Asia.

The vessel loaded 3756 empty containers, or roughly 40% of its total capacity of 9578 TEU at Port Botany.

The vessel travelled to Australia from Thailand and departed Port Botany at 1930 on 29 March enroute to Melbourne where it will evacuate more empty containers before returning to Vietnam, mainland China and Hong Kong.

At 346.9 metres long, and 42.9 metres wide, Soroe Maersk is the size of three and a half football fields and is nine metres longer than the previous record holder.

The empty sweeper is welcome, assisting in alleviating the empty container build-up that has been causing havoc with ECPs in Sydney.

Soroe Maersk-credit Bob Wood Chatswood Portography