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Mr G.J. Rao

T.E. Raja Simhan

Chennai, Oct 28 The Tuticorin Port Trust (TPT) has short listed five companies, including the existing private container terminal operator PSA-Sical, for operating the second container terminal under ‘build, operate and transfer’ basis. This terminal would add six lakh TEUs to the port’s existing capacity of 4.70 lakh TEUs.

These are: PSA-Sical (a joint venture of the Singapore-based PSA International and the Chennai-based Sical Logistics), Oceanic Transport, Chettinad Logistics, Afcons Infrastructure and Larsen&Toubro.

The private operator will bring in Rs 312 crore of investment in the new terminal to be given on a 30-year lease. On its part, the TPT has so far invested over Rs 40 crore on dredging and berth construction.

The second container terminal is expected to be operational in the first quarter of next year, Mr G.J. Rao, Chairman, TPT, told Business Line.

In 2007-2008, the PSA-Sical container terminal handled 4.50 lakh TEUs. In the current year, till September, the terminal handled 2.33 lakh TEUs.

According to Mr Rao, the port trust is converting the eighth berth (general berth) into a container terminal.

Currently, this terminal is 345 metres long and 10.9 m deep.

In the next 15 months, the port trust will dredge the basin and port entry channel at a cost of Rs 538 crore to receive vessels of up to 12.8 m draft.

This will help the port to handle large vessels of around 5,000 TEUs from the present 3,000 TEUs, he said.

The port trust got the security clearance from the Centre for the new terminal.

The next stage will be submitting the proposal with the Public Private Partnership Approval Committee for clearance, under the Ministry of Finance, he said.

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