Chemoil Adani keen to develop bunkering facility at Chennai port

Chemoil Adani, a joint venture between Chemoil and Adani, has shown interest in developing a bunkering facility at Chennai port. The Indian Oil Corporation is the only supplier of bunker – fuel oil used aboard ships – in Chennai.

Mundra, Colombo and Kochi ports have developed bunkering facility. The Kandla port has also taken initiative to improve this facility.

Chennai is an ideal location along the east coast to develop a bunkering facility, said a board member of the Chennai Port Trust. Chemoil recently gave a presentation on setting up such a facility in Chennai, and the board was keen to pursue it, he said.

Advantage Chennai Chemoil is the only independent physical supplier of marine fuel globally to have operations in top oil products ports, including Singapore, Rotterdam and Fujairah.

In the presentation, Chemoil said that Furnace Oil 380 is the most preferred marine fuel, meeting Marpol guidelines, and its pricing in Chennai is not in sync with daily movement of international prices.

In Chennai, around 3,540 tonnes of bunker sales happens every month. The Chennai bunker facility can compete with Kochi and Colombo. “We can replicate the success of Mundra in Chennai. We can reach 10,000 tonnes within 12 months,” Chemoil said in its presentation.

Chemoil, through its Mundra facility, supplies nearly 50,000 tonnes of bunker, serving the entire Gujarat coast. Last year, it commenced operations at Mormugao port selling around 5,000 tonnes every month.

Infra hurdles On infrastructure challenges at Indian ports, Chemoil said non-availability of pipelines for bunkering at cargo jetties and absence of dedicated bunkering terminal/jetties were a major concern.

There is shortage of storage tank capacities at ports and short supply of bunkering barges along the Indian coast.

Last year, the ChPT on its own planned a new barge facility to meet the increase in demand for bunkering at a cost of Rs 26 crore in Bharathi Dock through public-private partnership.

This will be on a design, build, finance, operate and transfer basis and the developer will be selected based on the highest revenue share.

The vessel traffic at the port has been growing steadily over the past five years, and handles annual around 2,000 ships.

Bunkering at the port is currently carried out through the barge jetty in the extreme northern end of Bharathi Dock. This is a 30-metre temporary facility with a draft of 2.5-3 metre.

This jetty is used exclusively by Indian Oil Corporation Ltd for bunkering of Navy, Coast Guard, bulk carriers and container ships – both coastal and foreign ships.

>raja.simhan@thehindu.co.in

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