Lamu Port handled about 5,200 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) from a single vessel for the first time on Saturday.
The vessel, MV Hamouna, is 366 metres long and arrived carrying roughly 14,500 TEUs, of which about 5,200 were scheduled for discharge at Lamu.
After navigating roughly 14 nautical miles through the Eastern Channel, MV Hamouna berthed at the port’s deep-water berths, which have a depth of about 17.5 metres.
Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) Managing Director Capt. William Ruto said the volume was the highest ever discharged from a single ship at Lamu, adding that even Mombasa Port has not surpassed the figure.
He remarked, “This is the first vessel to discharge over 5,000 TEUs at once. Even our Mombasa Port has not surpassed this figure, making Lamu Port the next frontier in the maritime industry.”
The discharged containers will be moved to smaller feeder vessels for onward transport, underscoring Lamu’s role as a transshipment hub along the LAPSSET Corridor.
Although Lamu remains a smaller container operation than Mombasa, its traffic is expected to grow as the LAPSSET Corridor develops and as the Dangote East Africa Refinery project proceeds, which KPA says could generate additional demand for port and logistics services.
The port has recently accommodated other large ships, including the 369-metre MV Baltimore Express earlier this year and the 335-metre MV Nagoya Express, which set a vessel-size record in August 2025.
During the maiden-call ceremony, Capt. Ruto presented a certificate of first call and a plaque to the vessel’s master Capt. Mir Firoozi.
