The Hindu Business Line : Crude lighterage progressing slowly at Sandheads

Kolkata, Dec. 26 Crude lighterage at the Sandheads, the mouth of the Hooghly river, is progressing at a slower pace this year vis-À-vis last year. Till December-end, the throughput has been around 1.5 million tonnes (mt) against over two mt in the same period last year.

In 2006-07, the throughput was 4.2 mt. In fact, the throughput every year for the past few years has been in the region of four mt. Kolkata Port Trust sources, however, are keeping their fingers crossed if the trend will be maintained this year also.

One reason for the lower throughput so far is believed to be the delayed start of the operation. Normally it starts in October every year; this year it started in the middle of November, presumably because the Indian Oil Corporation took time to nominate the mother vessels. Also, daughter vessels, generally supplied by the Shipping Corporation of India, were not available in sufficient numbers initially. At any point, three to four daughter vessels should be in the circuit to ensure smooth operation. Right now there are three, the number was even less earlier.

Again, once started the operation was not smooth. Bad weather hit crude discharge from the mother vessel to daughter vessels. The availability of tugs, supplied by the port authorities, was also a problem, it is learnt.

Essence of operation

The essence of crude lighterage operation is this: huge crude tankers (mother vessels) at the Sandheads discharge crude by way of ship-to-ship operation into several smaller crude tankers (daughter vessels) at a time.

These daughter vessels in turn undertake the second round of discharge generally at Haldia dock. The VLCCs (very large crude carriers) and ULCCs (ultra large crude carriers) with full load, which cannot call at other Indian ports because of limited drafts, have no problem at the Sandheads, which, being the confluence of the Hooghly river and the Bay of Bengal, offers a minimum draft of 50 metres.

Some times, the daughter vessels also discharge at Visakhapatnam and Chennai ports. An estimated 12-13 per cent of the crude lighterage throughput at the Sandheads is transhipment cargo. The volume of transhipment crude too has been lower this year. Last year, till December, the volume of transhipment crude was around 1.75 lakh tonnes while the corresponding figure for this year has been around 36,000 tonnes.

If everything goes as per schedule, 2007-08 should be the last year for crude lighterage operation at the Sandheads. This is because the need for such an operation, it is felt, will not arise once crude starts flowing from Paradip to Haldia through 350-km long Paradip-Haldia crude pipeline due to be commissioned shortly.