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Amit Mitra

Hyderabad, Nov. 10 DP World, the world’s third largest container terminal operator, may face a 20 per cent drop in container throughput this year at the five terminals that it operates in India, in tune with the trend being experienced by other major ports in the country due to the downturn.

The container terminal operator may end 2009 with a throughput of about 3.5 million TEUs, which is about 18-20 per cent lower than its combined throughput last year.

Capt Anil Singh, Managing Director of DP World (Subcontinent Region), was, however, hopeful that 2010 will get back the throughput levels of last year.

While continuing with its expansion plans in India, DP World India is at the moment “standing back and waiting for the turnaround to happen.” “There is no slowing down on our expansion plans and our appetite (for expansion) has not diminished. It is only that this period (downturn) has given us time to think. There is enough potential for development of additional container terminal capacities in India,” he told Business Line.

India at present handles about 8 million TEUs of container traffic and according to projections, the demand would be about 48 million TEUs by 2050. “It is clear India needs more capacities in container handling sector,” he pointed out.

DP World is expanding the Nhava Sheva International Container Terminal at JNPT from the present 1.5 million TEUs to two million TEUs at a cost of $80 million, while the Vizag terminal, in which it has a 26 per cent stake, is being ramped up from 100,000 TEUs to 500,000 TEUs.

Work on the Vallarpadam terminal is in progress and the company expects the one-million TEU facility to be operational by March 2010. “This will be India’s first transhipment hub with a deep draft facility that can accommodate vessels of up to 13,000 TEUs. We are setting up the facility at a cost of Rs 3,000 crore, including road connectivity, which will have a capacity of 3.5 million TEUs in three years,” Capt Singh said.

At present, an estimated three million TEUs of transhipment cargo is annually diverted to Colombo, as India does not yet have a transhipment hub. DP World expects to grab a significant chunk of this cargo through its Vallarpadam terminal.

The company has also proposed a 600,000 TEU terminal at Kulpi in West Bengal, for which it is awaiting necessary Government clearances.

DP World, which at present operates container rail services between Ludhiana and JNPT, Mundra and Pipavav, plans to extend the services in the Kochi--Chennai-Visakhapatnam sector. “We plan to operate seven rakes in this sector by next year, for which we will be spending Rs 100 crore,” according to Capt Singh.

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