Essar Ports Ltd, a unit of Ruia’s promoted-Essar Group, will invest about $500 million over the next two years to grow its ports business, Chief Executive Officer Rajiv Agarwal said on Monday after announcing the opening of new facilities at Salaya in Gujarat and Visakhapatnam Port in Andhra Pradesh.

Essar Ports invested ₹2,830 crore to set up the greenfield 20 million tonne (mt) general cargo terminal at Salaya and the 16 mt mechanised iron ore facility at Visakhapatnam, helping the company raise cargo handling capacity to 90 mt.

New investment

The new investment will fund expansion of its Hazira facility by 20 mt, Vizag facility by 8 mt, build an 18 mt coal terminal at Paradip, a greenfield port in Mozambique as well as set up a container terminal and liquid cargo berths for handling LNG and LPG at Salaya.

The opening of Salaya and Visakhapatnam terminals has the potential to increase the company’s revenues by 30 per cent in FY19 on the back of third-party cargo growth, Agarwal said.

The ₹2,000-crore Salaya port is the first deep-draft terminal in the Saurashtra region capable of berthing Capesize vessels with a ship turnaround time of less than two days, thus offering a competitive advantage to the local industry for exporting and importing commodities such as coal, bauxite, limestone and fertilisers. Half of the Salaya capacity will be utilised by the 1200-MW power plant of Essar and the remaining half will be third party cargo,” Agarwal said.

Essar invested ₹830 crore to expand and upgrade the iron ore handling capacity at the outer harbour of Visakhapatnam Port Trust. The upgradation includes erecting an 8,000-TPH ship loader, which has increased its cargo handling rate from 70,000 TPD to 120,000 TPD. The increased cargo handling will also translate into shorter turnaround times and competitive freight costs for exporters on the east coast.

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