The Hindu Business Line : Mundra Port to have 4 more berths

The Rs 16,000-crore ($3.6 billion) Adani Group's Mundra Port will have four additional berths this year and two new container terminals next year to handle the growing cargo.

The volume of cargo is expected to reach 50 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) by 2010 and 150 MTPA by 2025, top company sources said.

With these new additions, the all-weather and multi-purpose Mundra Port, promoted by Gujarat Adani Port Ltd, will have a total of eight berths to handle all types of dry and liquid bulk cargo and four container terminals to handle container cargo in a fully-mechanised handling process. Its record unloading rate was 30,000 tonnes per day (tpd).

Mundra Port is the country's largest private port that came into being with the Gujarat Government's port privatisation policy in the last decade.

Since its inception in 1998, it has grown today to handle almost 10 times of the cargo, the sources told Business Line here. In 1990-2000, the Port had handled 12 lakh tonnes (lt) of cargo (including three lakh tonnes liquid cargo), which increased to 92 lt (including 12 lt liquid cargo) in 2005-06. Also, the Port's exports increased from four lt to 19 lt and imports from eight lt to 62 lt during the same period.

This port, having a draft of 17.5 metres, has the capability to handle even Panamax, Cape-Size and Suezmax vessels. Besides, at a distance of nearly 12 miles offshore from the main port, it has a Single-Buoy Mooring Terminal(SBMT), commissioned last year, to berth Very Large Crude Carriers of 3.60 lakh tonnes deadweight and to carry out a complete discharge of crude in about 40 hours.

Mundra Port has also got an in-principle approval for three more SBMT.

The Mundra International Container Terminal (MICT), managed by P&O Ports for the company, has a quay length of 636 metres. This is being increased to about 1,200 metres at the two new container-handling terminals along with world-class facilities were expected to be ready next year. The four additional berths at this MICT (Terminal Two) with plans to handle Cape-Size bulk carriers are under construction at a brisk pace, and are likely to be made available by August.

MICT, located near India's largest cargo-generating region, operates round-the-year with no tidal restrictions.

The port is also developing a new coal stack yard with stacker-cum-reclaimer operation of one lakh tonnes per day handling capacity with automatic wagon loading system. In addition to it, the Group has plans to set up coal-based liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving and re-gasification terminal at the up-and-coming Mundra Special Economic Zone in the port's vicinity.

The Group will not tie up with any LNG supplier but will create facilities to be offered to the consumers on fixed charges, the sources said.

Moreover, additional liquid storage capacity of 60,000 kilolitres (KL) was also being added to the existing storage facility. After the addition, the total liquid cargo storage facility will go up to 3.5 lakh KL, inside the Port limit.