Wellard Rural Exports has reported that is flagship livestock transporting vessel, the MV Ocean Drover, has just transported its one millionth head of cattle.

The milestone was achieved on a recent voyage from Townsville to Indonesia and Vietnam.

The MV Ocean Drover returned to service at the start of this year after spending five months in a Singapore shipyard undergoing repairs following a fire in its accommodation quarters last October.

The world’s largest purpose built vessel, the MV Ocean Drover has loaded the million cattle from ports including  Townsville, Darwin, Wyndham, Broome, Geraldton, Fremantle, Adelaide, Portland, Timaru (NZ), Napier (NZ), Belem (Brasil), Galveston (USA)  and others, discharging them in countries including China, Jordan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Mexico, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Israel and Russia.

The vessel is also closing in on transporting its five millionth sheep, with 4,894,298 sheep transported to date.

“It was a big challenge when we decided to sign up the Uljanik shipyard in Croatia in 2000 to build the MV Becrux for what was, and still is, the largest new build livestock carrier in the world. And it still surpasses its closest purpose-built rival considerably in terms of size,” Wellard CEO Mauro Balzarini said in a media release issued today.

“I remember my hand was shaking when I had to sign the contract, but, we had every expectation it would be a high performance vessel as we had designed the ship from the keel up to provide the best animal welfare and transport performance.

“This milestone is another proof point that the MV Ocean Drover has delivered on that expectation.

“Building the MV Ocean Drover was a transformational event for Wellard, due to the combination of its size and its fit-for-purpose design and construction, so no-one is more pleased than me to see it reach that milestone.

“The vessel continues to be the flagship of our four-vessel fleet.”

The design of the MV Ocean Drover formed the design basis for two subsequent vessels, the MV Ocean Swagman and the MV Ocean Outback, and the currently under construction, MV Ocean Shearer.