The Hindu Business Line : Poor crude tanker arrival at Sandheads

The drop in throughput has been caused by the non-arrival of huge crude tankers such as VLCCs/ULCCs or Suezmax types at the Sandheads. The non-arrival of the tankers is attributed to the jamming of vessels at the loading ports, mostly in the West Asia Gulf.

Kolkata , Dec. 27

THE crude lighterage at Sandheads, the mouth of the Hooghly river, has been at low key so far this year.

For the past 15 days, there has been hardly any big crude tanker arriving at Sandheads for discharging crude in smaller daughter vessels, with the result the total throughput so far in the current year has been a little more than 2 million tonnes compared to more than three mt in the same period last year.

If the trend persists, it is feared that the Kolkata Dock System might find it hard to achieve the targeted throughput of 4.8 mt by March 2006. In 2004-05, the throughput was around 4.6 mt.

Last year too, a similar problem was witnessed in February, towards the end of the season. This year it is being experienced much earlier in December. The problem could have been averted had the public sector oil company importing the crude taken precaution well in advance, say sources at the Kolkata Dock System.

The sources, however, say they are still hopeful of a surge in crude throughput during the rest of the season, which will last till end March/early April. The oil company concerned will soon come out with detailed programmes of the huge number of large crude tankers due to arrive at Sandheads for lighterage. If that happens, the current shortfall will be made up.

The essence of lighterage operation is this: huge crude tankers (VLCC/ULCC/Suezmax) with full load arrive at Sandheads for discharging crude in smaller daughter vessels through ship-to-ship discharge.

The smaller daughter vessels, requiring lower draft, in turn, discharge the same crude at various ports such as Haldia, Paradip, Visakhapatnam and even Chennai.

The huge crude tankers come to Sandheads because no other port in the country offers the kind of draft these vessels require. The crude lighterage at Sandheads is generally undertaken for six months, from October to March.