Vizag port in expansion mode, to invest Rs 20 cr

Visakhapatnam Port Trust (VPT) is planning to invest around Rs 20 crore on expanding the capacity of its Ore Handling Complex (OHC).

The capacity of the OHC, which is used for mechanical loading of iron ore, is being expanded by another 2 million tonnes. The OHC is a major revenue earner for the Visakhapatnam port and handles between 20 and 25 per cent of the total cargo handled by port.

Because of the availability of mechanical loading facilities, the loading rate in VPT is very high, even in Cape size vessels, which have a carrying capacity of about 1.25 lakh tonnes.

With iron ore loading being completed in two days, waiting time for berthing coming down from 27 hours to 1.20 hours and loading charges being much lower compared to other major ports, several new iron ore export companies have preferred the Vizag port for iron ore exports.

VPT expects this demand to continue for few more years and keeping this in mind it has decided to expand the OHC capacity from existing 10 million tonnes of 12 million tonnes with in two years.

"At present the OHC capacity is 10 million tonnes, but we can handle up to 12 million tonnes, if sufficient iron ore stocks are available in time. Additionally, we have decided to provide additional facilities like bucket wheel reclaimer, stocker and other facilities because of which the OHC capacity will increase further", Ratna Kishore,chairman of Visakhapatnam Port Trust, told Business Standard.

For the year ended March 31, 2004, VPT has registered an 18.5 per cent growth in iron ore loading, and this was possible mainly due to the performance of the OHC.

During the year 2002-03 VPT had handled 10.30 million tonnes of iron ore and pellets, where as this fiscal it has handled 12.29 million tonnes, 10.06 million tonnes of iron ore was loaded through OHC and the remaining 2.2 million tonnes was loaded manually in the inner harbour.

In addition to old customers like MMTC, NMDC, Essar group, Ispat Industries and Vikram Ispat, several new customers like Penguin Trading, Rungta Mines, Bellary Iron Ore, Essel Mining, Trimex, Tata Steel, Bharat Mines, Jindal, Core Minerals, Bhagadia Brothers, Vibhutiguda, Gimpex and K.M.M.I have used the port for iron ore exports this fiscal.