The Hindu Business Line : IOC crude imports through Haldia to remain intact

Kolkata March 19 Two developments have come as a relief to the Haldia dock authorities even as the dock's traffic throughput in 2006-07 is estimated to remain unchanged at previous year's level of a little more than 42 million tonnes (mt).

First, Indian Oil Corporation has indicated that the volume of crude it imports through the dock will be intact, at least in the first half of 2007-08, as the Paradip-Haldia crude pipeline — to be complete with the single point mooring facility off Paradip port — will not be ready for operation till September. Haldia was apprehensive that it would lose bulk of its crude traffic to Paradip from April.

Second, the board of Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL), it is learnt, has cleared the proposal for track doubling on the greater part of Panskura-Haldia section of the South Eastern Railway(SER), thus removing bottlenecks in rail transportation to and from Haldia dock.

Crude pipeline

Haldia dock currently handles about 12 mt of crude traffic annually but will stand to lose the bulk of it, about eight to nine mt, as soon as the 330-km long Paradip-Haldia crude pipeline being constructed by IOC is commissioned. After several postponements, the pipeline was due to be commissioned in April this year.

However, according to Haldia dock sources, there is no such possibility. IOC has renewed its arrangement with the dock authorities for importing crude through the dock till September, say the sources.

This also means a setback for Paradip port, which has been pinning a good deal of hope on the crude traffic. The port does not handle any crude right now, but only limited quantities of petroleum products. It had earlier hoped to end the current fiscal with a couple of million tonnes of crude traffic, as the pipeline was due to be commissioned in the last quarter.

As that did not happen, the port authorities had to scale down the original traffic projection for 2006-07. The port, it now appears, may have to wait till October before it can start handling crude.

Second development

Paradip Port Trust, according to a spokesman, has no information as yet about the delay in the commissioning of the Paradip-Haldia crude pipeline. "We're still hoping to see the pipeline commissioned in April," he observed.

Another development has been the decision of RVNL to start work on the doubling of railway line between Rajgoda and Haldia on the 70-km long Panskura-Haldia section of SER. The future of the project had become uncertain after SER, on completing doubling work on the 16-km stretch between Panskura and Rajgoda, threw up its hands.

RVNL had to complete the remaining double tracking in the 54-km stretch between Rajgoda and Haldia. But, RVNL, it is learnt, was not convinced of the traffic potential on the route and therefore the viability of the project.