The Hindu Business Line : Mormugao port sees steep fall in iron ore traffic

Kolkata, Sept. 11 Mormugao port, the country’s largest iron ore export handling port, has been experiencing a sharp drop in iron ore throughput for the past two months, according to port sources.

In August this year, the throughput was 2.49 lakh tonnes as compared to 5.29 lakh tonnes in the same month last year. In September so far, the throughput has been 33,000 tonnes compared to 2 lakh tonnes in the corresponding period of the last year.

Mormugao port authorities are worried because iron ore accounts for the bulk of the port’s total traffic. In 2007-08, the share of iron ore was 27 million tonnes (mt) in the port’s total traffic throughput of 35 mt. Unless the present trend is reversed in the coming months, the port, it is feared, might find it difficult to touch the targeted level of 30 mt of iron ore traffic this fiscal.

Cumulatively, however, the throughput has been higher so far vis-À-vis the same period last year. Between April and the first week of September of this year, the total iron ore traffic handled by the port was 9.2 mt, compared to 8.2 mt in the same period last year.

Clueless

The port sources, though worried, are not sure of the real reason for the drop in iron ore traffic. “We’re the service provider and so we do not know the actual reason for the decline in ore traffic, but we hear that the international demand for iron ore is down and with it the world price of the iron ore, hence the drop in exports,” the sources add.

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