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Santanu Sanyal

Kolkata , June 15

THE transportation of iron ore by trucks from the mines in Barbil to Paradip port in Orissa has remained suspended for the past several days. The road transport operators are protesting against the exporters' insistence on lower road freight, following the drop in the ore price in the world market.

The truckers were charging as high as Rs 1300 to 1400 per tonne to cover the distance between Barbil and Paradip. As long as the going was good and the iron ore's (free-on-board) price in the world market ruled at $75 to 80 per tonne, the exporters had no problems in paying that high truck hire rates.

However, with the international ore price having crashed to $25-30 per tonne, the exporters too are insisting on a lower truck hire rate of Rs 700/800 per tonne, which is not acceptable to the road transport operators.

The port handles about six million tonnes of ore exports annually of which about 2.5 to three million tonnes are transported to the port by rail and the balance by road. In past few days, not a single truck carrying ore arrived at the port against the normal arrival of 1,000 trucks a day. Fortunately, for the port, the export demand now is at a low ebb. In the current month, only one lakh tonnes were exported through the port against the targeted five lakh tonnes for the whole month. Also, there is a ground stock of about three lakh tonnes.

The port authorities hope that the road transporters' strike comes to an end at the earliest. Although the international ore price has crashed, there are exporters even at a lower price. The supply shortage due to the suspension of road movement cannot be made up by rail transport, given the various constraints. Negotiations are on for an early settlement of the strike and the indication is that a settlement might be reached at Rs 1,000 per tonne.

More Stories on : Shipping | Railways | Steel

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