Country desk
Kenya's seaborne trade passes through Mombasa, with Lamu opening a second deep-water door on the northern coast. Mombasa is where Maingate Shipping is based, so every Kenyan port call runs on our own desk rather than through an intermediary.
Maingate Shipping Limited coordinates ship agency across Kenya for owners, charterers, managers, traders and lines. The trade through Kenyan ports is containers, bulk wheat and maize, clinker, fertilizer, petroleum products, steel and vehicles inbound; tea, coffee, horticulture, titanium sands and soda ash outbound. Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and eastern DR Congo receive most of their sea cargo through Mombasa along the Northern Corridor.
Formalities: Kenya Ports Authority runs the ports, Kenya Maritime Authority regulates shipping and seafarers, and Kenya Revenue Authority customs clears the cargo. The desk works with them on every call and keeps the principal clear of the detail unless the detail matters.
Operational note for Kenya: crew changes at Mombasa run through Moi International Airport, and Mombasa's anchorage serves ship-to-ship bunkering and off-port-limits calls.
Each port has its own desk with the terminals, the cargo and the services a call needs.
Kenya's ports are Mombasa, Lamu. Mombasa handles containers, bulk wheat and maize, clinker, fertilizer, petroleum products, steel, vehicles and project cargo through the container terminals at Kilindini, the conventional berths, the bulk grain silos, the Kipevu oil terminal and the Shimanzi oil jetty. Lamu handles transshipment containers, project cargo for the corridor works, and the first bulk and general cargo calls through three long berths designed for deep-draft vessels, with transshipment and bulk handling still building volume.
Our own desk in Mombasa attends both ports with its own staff.
Much of what lands in Kenya is going somewhere else: Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and eastern DR Congo receive most of their sea cargo through Mombasa along the Northern Corridor. The receiver's clearing agent, the transit bond, the delivery order and the truck or wagon are as much part of the call as the crane, and the desk keeps them moving with the discharge.
Documents follow the cargo inland; quantities are reconciled at the quay before the vessel sails.
Every Kenyan call touches the same authorities: Kenya Ports Authority runs the ports, Kenya Maritime Authority regulates shipping and seafarers, and Kenya Revenue Authority customs clears the cargo. Filing ahead, in the format each expects, is what keeps a vessel from waiting at anchor for a stamp.
Reports to the principal follow one style at every port: pre-arrival, daily, departure with the statement of facts, then the final DA.
The Kenyan operational note that shapes crew, fuel and stores planning: crew changes at Mombasa run through Moi International Airport, and Mombasa's anchorage serves ship-to-ship bunkering and off-port-limits calls. Medical cases, cash to master and spares are handled at whichever port the itinerary makes convenient.
Owners keep their own account for these matters with the desk as protecting agent.
Mombasa, Lamu, each with its own desk in this cluster. Smaller ports and anchorages are covered on request.
Maingate Shipping's own staff at Mombasa and Lamu.
Yes. Multi-port itineraries are handled as one appointment with a separate DA per port on one account.
Yes, at each port according to its airport and immigration arrangements, described on the crew change desk for that port.
Send the vessel's particulars, ETA, port, cargo or purpose and the principal's details to the desk by email; a proforma DA follows promptly.
Nominate Maingate Shipping and the answer comes from Mombasa with a proforma DA attached.
The Kenya desk connects to the port desks below and to the Africa agency line.
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Maingate Shipping Limited · Express Building, Moi Avenue, Mombasa, Kenya · ops@maingateshipping.com · +254 784 622 091