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The Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) has decided to put on hold the ₹2,500-crore liquid cargo terminal, barely two months after it short-listed five bidders in a global tender to award the project.
JNPT Chairman NN Kumar said the port trust has decided to go for a review of the project following concerns that demand for liquid cargo handling capacity will be much lower than the projected traffic volume.
The project was designed to have a capacity to handle 15 million tonnes (mt) a year. “We may scale down the capacity to 7.5 mt and instead of four berths, we may go for two,” he said.
In September, the port had short listed six parties – including Adanis, Shapoorji Pallonji Group and United Liner Agencies for setting up the project on public private partnership (PPP) basis.
The plan was to award the contract by second half of next year.
JN Port, the country’s premier container port, also handles liquid cargo – 5.5 mt a year at a terminal operated jointly by oil companies BPCL and IOC.
As part of the expansion plans, the port wants to build a large liquid cargo terminal, to take up the capacity to 20.5 mt by 2018.
In fact, the project which was to be implemented in two phases, envisaged a total capacity of 26.5 mt cargo.
The first phase – four berths with a capacity to handle 15 mt – was expected to be ready in four years.
A port official said the project was put on hold following advice from the Shipping Ministry. Apparently, the Ministry is not too keen on JNPT going in for liquid cargo terminal; instead it wants the former to focus on container cargo.
In any case, the neighbouring Mumbai port has been handling large volume of liquid cargo to cater to the refineries and other users in and around the city.
Recently, Mumbai has floated a tender for setting up an LNG terminal with a capacity to handle five mt a year.
JN Port, which has been facing capacity constraints in container handling, will soon have one additional terminal ready. The 330-meter terminal of DP World, Dubai, is likely to be operational by first quarter of next year.
The work on the ₹8,000-crore fourth terminal, awarded to PSA of Singapore, is also expected to begin at the same time.
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