- AL MOTHANNA joins SJ Logisol's multi-purpose vessel programme at Kandla Port, adding break-bulk and project capacity on India's west coast.
- Multi-purpose vessels carry what containers cannot — long, heavy and awkward pieces, loaded by the ship's own gear.
- MPV capacity is structurally scarce, so secured tonnage is worth more to project shippers than a keen rate.
- Kandla's hinterland reaches Gujarat, Rajasthan and the north-west industrial belt.
Some cargo will never fit in a container. Transformers, transmission towers, boilers, fabricated structures, long steel, mill machinery — pieces measured in metres and tonnes, with lifting points instead of corner castings. For that freight the workhorse is the multi-purpose vessel, and space on one is persistently harder to find than space on a container ship.
Which is why the addition of AL MOTHANNA to SJ Logisol's MPV programme at Kandla Port matters to anyone shipping project or break-bulk cargo out of western India.
What a multi-purpose vessel actually is
An MPV is a general cargo ship built for flexibility. Large open holds without the cell guides that constrain a container ship, strengthened tank tops for concentrated point loads, and — critically — its own cranes, so it can work at berths with no heavy shore gear.
| Container ship | Multi-purpose vessel | Bulk carrier | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carries | Standard containers | Break-bulk, project, containers, bagged cargo | Loose bulk commodities |
| Own cranes | Usually none | Yes — often heavy-lift capable | Sometimes |
| Out-of-gauge | Only on flat racks, within limits | Yes, this is the point of the ship | No |
| Schedule | Fixed liner rotation | Semi-liner or chartered | Voyage chartered |
| Port flexibility | Needs container terminal | Can work minor and undeveloped berths | Needs bulk terminal |
That crane capability is the strategic difference. A project piece destined for a site served by a small port is only shippable if the vessel can discharge it without shore cranes.
Why MPV capacity is scarce
The global MPV fleet has aged and shrunk while renewable-energy build-out, grid expansion and industrial projects have increased demand for exactly the cargo it carries. Meanwhile container ships took over the general-cargo work MPVs once filled their spare capacity with — so the economics of ordering new ones weakened just as project demand rose.
The practical consequence for shippers: on a project move, availability governs. A rate that looks attractive is worthless if it comes with no confirmed tonnage inside the site's window.
On container freight you negotiate price. On project freight you negotiate space — and the negotiation starts months earlier than most shippers expect.
Why Kandla
Kandla — Deendayal Port — is one of India's busiest cargo gateways and the natural west-coast outlet for a very large industrial hinterland: Gujarat's chemical, engineering and fabrication clusters, Rajasthan's mineral and metals industries, and the wider north-western belt.
For over-dimensional cargo, road distance is not merely a cost — it is a risk. Every additional kilometre adds bridges to be assessed, overhead lines to be lifted, permits to be obtained and nights of escorted movement. Loading closer to the factory removes whole categories of exposure.
What this adds for shippers
- More break-bulk capacity on a corridor where project exporters routinely struggle to find space.
- Geared tonnage that can load and discharge without depending on shore cranes.
- Group-controlled operations — stowage and schedule decisions sit with people accountable to our customers, not with a chain of brokers.
- One contract from factory to foundation, including survey, permits, road movement, loading, sea carriage and destination delivery.
What "project ready" means before a piece moves
An MPV booking is the last step, not the first. Before a heavy piece reaches the quay, several things must already be true.
- Dimensional certainty Verified length, width, height, weight and centre of gravity — from the drawing, confirmed against the built item.
- Lifting points Manufacturer-specified points and permitted rigging arrangement, in writing.
- Route survey Physical inspection of the road between works and port: bridge ratings, turning radii, overhead clearances, surface strength.
- Permits and escorts ODC permissions, state approvals, utility clearances, police escorts — applied for early, because they set the timeline.
- Stowage and lashing plan Agreed with the vessel, with a marine surveyor's approval where value justifies it.
- Insurance All-risk cover written to full replacement value, and delay-in-start-up cover where the project schedule demands it.
Fabricating the piece before surveying the route. Discovering a bridge rating problem after the item is built leaves only bad options: dismantle, re-route hundreds of kilometres, or miss the sailing entirely. A survey costs a fraction of any of them.
How project cargo is actually priced
Project shipments have no rate card, and any forwarder who quotes one without asking questions has not understood the cargo. The price assembles from components that only become knowable once the move has been studied.
Vessel space depends on the piece's footprint, weight and whether it needs tween-deck or on-deck stowage. Lifting depends on weight, lift height and whether ship's gear suffices or a shore crane is required. Road transport depends on the surveyed route, the axle configuration needed and how many nights of escorted movement are involved. Permits and escorts vary by state and by how many jurisdictions the load crosses. Lashing and securing depends on the stowage plan and whether a marine warranty surveyor must approve it.
On top of that sit engineering time, insurance at full replacement value, and contingency — because project moves routinely encounter something the survey could not predict.
The honest way to buy this is to pay for a proper survey first and treat the resulting number as real, rather than accepting an unsurveyed quotation that will be revised upward once the work begins.
Break-bulk versus containerising: when to choose which
Not every large item must travel break-bulk. Some can be dismantled and containerised, and the decision is genuinely worth analysing rather than assuming.
Containerising suits pieces that can be split without compromising warranty or requiring specialist reassembly, where the destination has container handling, and where sailing frequency matters more than piece integrity. You gain schedule choice, easier insurance and lower handling risk.
Break-bulk on an MPV suits pieces that cannot be dismantled, assemblies where site reassembly is impractical or voids a manufacturer's warranty, cargo bound for ports without container infrastructure, and anything whose dimensions defeat a flat rack.
The trap is deciding late. A piece designed for shipment can often be engineered to fit standard equipment; the same piece, once fabricated as a single unit, has committed you to break-bulk and to whatever tonnage is available. This is why involving a forwarder at design stage saves more money than negotiating freight ever will.
A network built by owning more of the chain
Since 2003 the strategy has been consistent: control more of the journey so the promise made at booking can actually be kept at sea. Licensed multimodal operation, our own customs capability, our own project engineering, our own liner agency work — and vessel capacity within the group.
AL MOTHANNA at Kandla is one more link in that chain. For Indian manufacturers shipping heavy and oversized cargo to overseas buyers, it means one fewer party between the works and the water.
What break-bulk demands that container shipping does not
Moving cargo loose rather than in a box changes the discipline at every step, and shippers coming from container freight are often caught out by three things.
Packing is structural, not protective. A container carries the securing load; a break-bulk piece carries its own. Cradles, skids and lifting frames are engineering items that must survive a rolling ship, and getting them wrong is the most common cause of transit damage on project cargo.
Marking has to survive months outdoors. Pieces may sit in open storage at both ends. Marks stencilled directly onto the item, with weight, dimensions, lifting points and a clear consignee reference, outlast labels that peel in the first rain.
Tally is done piece by piece. A container is sealed and counted once. Break-bulk is counted at every handover, and each count is an opportunity for a discrepancy. Photographic records at loading are worth the twenty minutes they take.
Planning backwards from the commissioning date
Project logistics runs on a different clock from ordinary freight. The fixed point is not the sailing — it is the date the site can receive and erect the piece, and everything is planned backwards from there.
That backward plan typically runs: commissioning date, minus site erection window, minus final delivery and set-down, minus destination clearance, minus ocean transit, minus port storage and loading, minus escorted road movement, minus permit lead time, minus route survey, minus fabrication completion. On a serious project the survey therefore needs to start while the piece is still being welded.
Shippers who plan forwards from fabrication instead almost always arrive at the same discovery too late: that the permit cycle or the MPV sailing frequency, not the factory, is the binding constraint on the whole schedule.
Talk to us about space
If you are planning a project or break-bulk shipment from western India — particularly anything out of gauge, heavy-lift or bound for a site with limited port infrastructure — the conversation should start well before the cargo is ready.
Send us the dimensions, weights and target window and we will tell you what is realistic, what needs surveying, and what space we can hold on upcoming sailings.
