Maersk unit to open India's first green warehouse for chemicals in Pune

APM Terminals Inland Services, a unit of Danish transport giant AP Moller Maersk Group, is to open India’s first environment approved inland container depot (ICD) for handling chemicals in Pune, its Managing Director for South Asia, Ajit Venkataraman, has said.

The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has given APM Terminals Inland Services blanket approval to store 35,000 tonnes of chemicals of all types, except explosives and radioactive chemicals, at its facility located 150 km from Mumbai.

The ICD can handle 60,000 containers a year. It has 100,000 sq ft of warehouse space, half bonded and half non-bonded, besides 50,000 sq ft of yard space to store containers.

The move is aimed at supporting India’s chemical industry, currently estimated at $200 billion, and accounting for about 3 per cent of the global market. By 2025, the local chemical industry is expected to double to $400 billion, nudging multinational chemical companies to set up base in India, though the lack of compliant facilities was hampering growth.

India is a net importer of chemicals, with imports growing at 17 per cent CAGR in the last 10 years and exports at about 8 per cent, while domestic growth was about 4 per cent.

“Given that there is a huge amount of export-import happening in chemicals, one of the biggest challenges that chemical companies face today is the infrastructure to support the regulatory issues and compliance, because there are not too many compliant facilities in India, and this was hindering growth,” Venkataraman told BusinessLine .

“We see this as an opportunity not just for us, but also for the chemical industry to take it to the next level,” he said.

Global port operators such as DP World and PSA International are chasing cargo in India’s hinterland by acquiring firms running container freight stations (CFS), ICDs and container trains, to offer end-to-end solutions and propel growth in the world’s fastest growing major economy.

AP Moller-Maersk Group runs Maersk Line, the world’s biggest container shipping company, and APM Terminals, one of the big four global port terminal operators. It also runs Damco, a freight forwarder. This helps the Moller-Maersk Group offer end-to-end services to customers.

“As a group, we transformed into a logistics and transport business a year ago. This stems from the fact that customers are looking for end-to-end solutions, they don’t want to deal with multiple entities, they just want to deal with one entity who will take end-to-end responsibility. With Maersk Line, APMT and Damco, there is no other group that can give a complete end-to-end solution,” says Venkataraman.

Many of the large chemical players want a single player to deal with in key consumption and production areas.

“Since safety, security and compliance is such an important thing for these chemical giants and it fits well with the way we run our operations in a safe and compliant manner, it’s a good match in terms of what the customer is looking for and what we can provide,” he noted.

“Our industry is going through a transformation. People are moving away from a box-in, box-out concept, a traditional model for a CFS/ICD, to more value-added services,” he said.

“The game is in the hinterland, because that is where most of the action is going to be, and with improved connectivity, we expect growth will happen more and more in the interiors of the country,” Venkataraman added.

APM Terminals Inland Services runs two ICDs – one each in Pune and Dadri - and five CFSs – two in Mumbai and one each in Chennai, Mundra and Tuticorin.

Venkataraman said the firm would look at setting up more such environment compliant warehouses to store chemicals at its other facilities.

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