The Hindu Business Line : NTPC coal imports: Haldia, Paradip ports worried

Cause for concern
For the current year, NTPC is believed to have set a target of 2.2 mt imports through Paradip and one mt via Haldia.
Ports envisage infrastructural, other bottlenecks since most of this year's imports will have to be handled in 6 months.
In Oct-March, ports will have to handle not only more non-coking coal, but also other commodities.

Kolkata , Sept. 11

More than five months of the current fiscal have passed but National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) is yet to start importing non-coking coal on a regular basis through the east coast ports of Haldia and Paradip. As a result, the authorities of both the ports are worried.

Busy season

The concern of the port authorities is understandable. If the total volume proposed to be imported in the whole year is squeezed into six months, there may be handling problems because of infrastructural and other bottlenecks at the port. Between October and March, considered busy season every year, there will be more and more demand on the ports to handle not only more non-coking coal imported by other agencies but also increased volumes of other commodities even as the existing infrastructure remains critical.

Also, having adequate port facility is not enough; equally important is the facility for railway evacuation of the imported material. Unless the Railways also gear themselves up, there will be accumulation of the imported material at the port level, ultimately hitting shipping movement.

In 2005-06, NTPC imported an estimated 1.9 million tonnes (mt) of non-coking coal through Paradip and a little more than seven lakh tonnes through Haldia.

The targets for the current year are believed to have been set at 2.2 mt and one mt respectively.

In fits and starts

But then it will be wrong to presume that NTPC did not at all import non-coking coal through these ports so far in the current year.

It did undertake some imports, but in fits and starts. For example, through Paradip, the volume of import so far has been one lakh tonnes in two parcels of 50,000 tonnes each but, as the port sources complain, the public sector power utility has so far refrained from taking delivery of the consignments.

As a result, the import is lying accumulated within the port throwing up the storage problem.

The situation, however, is better at Haldia where the import so far has been of the order of 2.29 lakh tonnes and there is no accumulation within the dock premises.

Inquiries reveal that NTPC is close to firming up the import and other contracts for the current fiscal and the State Trading Corporation (STC) might be entrusted with the job almost entirely.

Earlier, it used to be both MMTC (Minerals & Metals Trading Corporation) and STC, it is learnt.

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