With the new facility in place, Vizag Port expects to handle more than 15 million tonne coking and steam coal in the next financial year.
“Once the new facility starts operations, the port can handle 75,000 tonne coal a day and will also attract larger vessels,” said a port official. Earlier, the port used to unload about 12,000 tonne coal a day and took 4-5 days to unload 45,000 tonne.
Last fiscal, it handled about 12 million tonne coking and steam coal and in Q3 of the current fiscal, this stood at 8 million tonne, a decline of 0.5 mt compared with the same period last year.
The official said Visakhapatnam Steel Plant was importing coking coal though Gangavaram port due to locational advantage. It imports about 4.5 million tonne (mt) and is likely to increase this once its capacity expansion is complete from 3.3 mt to 6 mt. With this new terminal, the official said, they were expecting some part of the steel plant’s cargo.
