Trade lane
India is one of East Africa's largest trading partners, sending rice, sugar, steel, pharmaceuticals, vehicles, machinery and project cargo across the Indian Ocean from Mundra, Kandla, Mumbai, Chennai and Visakhapatnam, and taking back cashew, pulses, minerals and timber. Maingate Shipping's desk in Mombasa serves this lane for Indian exporters, East African importers and the owners whose tonnage trades it.
The monsoon, the loadport line-ups and the East African receivers' documentation all bear on the voyage, and the desk plans for each.
Bagged rice and sugar on breakbulk and bulk vessels, steel coils and structures, project cargo for energy and industry, vehicles on ro-ro services, and containers on the direct services that link the west coast of India with Mombasa and Dar es Salaam.
Handysize and supramax tonnage for bagged and bulk parcels, laycans planned around the south-west monsoon's effect on loading and discharge, and laytime terms that reflect the East African ports' weather working days.
Loading calls coordinated with the shipper's agent in India, discharge agency at Mombasa and Lamu by our own staff, and Dar es Salaam, Djibouti and the Mozambican ports through the Africa agency line, with the cashew and pulse backhauls fixed by the same desk.
This desk is part of Maingate Shipping Limited, the Mombasa ship agency, crewing and brokerage house that has attended vessels at Kenyan ports since 2020 from its office at Express Building, Moi Avenue. Port agency at Mombasa and Lamu is handled by the company's own boarding officers; calls elsewhere in Africa run through the Maingate agency line under one DA format and one reporting style; Kenyan seafarers are recruited and managed from the same office; and the chartering desk fixes the tonnage that brings East Africa its wheat, fertilizer, clinker and fuel.
Principals deal with one desk for the whole voyage, and every service is agreed in writing before it is performed.
Yes. Bagged rice and sugar are discharged at the conventional berths with tally and receiver coordination by our own staff.
Yes. Cashew, pulses, minerals and timber are fixed and the loading call attended.
Mundra, Kandla, Mumbai, Chennai and Visakhapatnam through the shippers' agents there.
Receipts behind every line, a record behind every stoppage, a desk behind every call.
Related desks on the same instruction line.
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Maingate Shipping Limited · Express Building, Moi Avenue, Mombasa, Kenya · ops@maingateshipping.com · +254 784 622 091