Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Thursday, Nov 10, 2005
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Thursday, Nov 10, 2005 |
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Logistics
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Railways To meet SAIL demand for coking coal — Rlys to place additional rakes in 3 east coast ports Santanu Sanyal
Kolkata , Nov. 9 RESPONDING to the SOS from Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL), the Railways has decided to place additional rakes at the three east coast ports of Haldia, Paradip and Visakhapatnam to evacuate the increased volumes of coking coal proposed to be imported by the public sector steel giant through these ports in November. The Railways, according to informed sources, will place an additional 70 rakes in these ports in the current month — a total of 300 rakes as compared with 230 or so in normal times — to evacuate an estimated additional 2.5 lakh tonnes of coal to be imported through these ports. SAIL, it is learnt, will import about one million tonnes (mt) of coking coal this month as compared with 7.5 lakh tonnes a month normally. The port-wise distribution of additional rakes will be as follows: Haldia will get an additional 30 rakes to a total of 130, Paradip an additional 20 rakes to a total of 50 and Visakhapatnam an additional 20 rakes to reach a total of 120. The additional import has become imperative in view of the shortfall in arrivals in the months of September and October due to inclement weather in the three ports. Fewer ships could call at these ports during the period. In September, the import was 4.7 lakh tonnes and in October it was 5.7 lakh tonnes. Yet the SAIL plants succeeded in avoiding cutback in production by drawing upon the ground stocks at the port levels as also the stocks held at the plant levels. It is learnt that about four lakh tonnes of ground stocks at the three ports were evacuated for utilisation by the plants in these two months. The limited arrivals of imported coking coal have put the SAIL plants in a fix. Their stock positions have become critical, with Bhilai steel plant holding stocks to meet three days' requirement, Rourkela steel plant one week's, Durgapur steel plant two days' and Bokaro steel plant four days'. The steel plants are supposed to hold stocks for at least 10 days. Of all these plants, the situation at Bhilai is considered particularly difficult. First, the plant is located far away, more than 500 km, from the nearest port — Visakhapatnam. Next, the railway route — particularly Raipur-Vijayanagaram section — that is followed to transport the coal from the port to the plant is generally congested. More important, more than 70 per cent of Bhilai's coking coal requirement is met by way of imports.
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