Arcelor-Mittal, the largest steel maker of the world, has evinced interest to set up a captive port at Barunei Muhan to the north of Mahanadi river near Paradip in Orissa.
The port will be used to serve two mega integrated steel plants of the company proposed in Orissa and Jharkhand. The steel projects, which will have capacities of 12 million tonne each, require import of raw materials like coking coal and limestone and export of finished products.
The captive port is projected to have a cargo handling capacity of 35 million tonne per annum (MTPA) to be attained in two phases. However, the company has not indicated the quantum of investment for the port.
A team of company officials led by Sanak Mishra, chief executive officer (CEO) of Arcelor-Mittal’s India greenfield projects, today made a presentation before the Orissa chief secretary Ajit Kumar Tripathy and other senior officials of the state government on the port project.
The proposed port will have a cargo handling capacity of 10.62 million tonne in the stage-I of first phase which will be expanded to 17.3 million tonne in stage-II. After the completion of 2nd phase, the cargo handling capacity will go up to 35 million tonne.
The port will handle cargo like coking coal, PCI coal, limestone, slabs, billets, HR coil, steel products among others. It will have 5 berths in the first phase and 7 berths by the end of the second phase. While 391 vessels are expected to visit the port every year by the end of the first phase, the number will grow to 582 ships when it is fully commissioned.
In its presentation, the company stated that it will be prudent to design the first phase with Panamax size vessels which can be upgraded to handling cape size vessels in the second phase. The channel will have a depth of 16 metres and a length of about 6 kms. This will further increase to 20 metres and 10kms by the end of second phase.
The company proposed to construct double lane rail line to connect the port with the Paradeep-Haridaspur main line. Similarly, new sidings will be constructed for railway connectivity. Besides, a 4 four-laned road will be constructed to connect the port with the National Highway no.5.
The captive port will have steel servicing centre, downstream processing and finishing line, ancillaries such as automative industry, technical training institutes and fabrication workshops. The company has indicated that about 6000 acres of land will be required for setting up the project and related infrastructure, sources added.
Interestingly, the port site will be about 270 km away from the site of its 12 million tonne greenfield steel project in Patna tehsil in Keonjhar district of Orissa. The preliminary project report was prepared by Department of Ocean Engineering (DoOE), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Chennai. DHI was entrusted with the task of preparing feasibility report for the port.
However, the fate of this proposal remains uncertain as the state government is not in favour of captive ports to come up in the identified location which it fears will result in under-utilisation of the port potential of the state.
