Cargo diversification comes to the rescue of Kamarajar port

Focus on handling diversified cargo has helped Kamarjar port in Ennore to stay competitive in the region, which has three other ports eyeing cargo from the same hinterland, said Rinkesh Roy, Chairman-cum-Managing Director, Kamarajar Port Ltd (KPL).

Four ports — Chennai, Kamarajar (in Ennore), Katupalli and Krishnapatnam — operate within a short geographical distance, and target the same hinterland for cargo. The only way to attract cargo is be competitive, reduce cost and look at giving quality service, said Roy at a trade meeting by KPL organised along with the Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Infra development

In last few years, KPL has managed to transform itself from handling dirty cargo (coal for Tamil Nadu Electricity Board) to now more clean cargo, including automobile and liquid cargo, and break bulk.

For this transition, necessary infrastructure developed, he said. Over the past four years, the port’s throughput stagnated at 30-32 million tonnes (mt) as coal handling came down significantly. Dependence on coal in future will reduce through a more diversified portfolio to handle different types of cargo, including LNG, he added.

KPL, in the past four years, has added around 36 mt of cargo handling capacity.

In the next four years, it will add 28 mt of capacity to take the total capacity to around 60 mt with an aggregate investment of around ₹10,000 crore, Roy further said.

Connectivity through rail and road is a key challenge and KPL has been investing substantially in improving it.

Two railway line doubling projects has been taken up with IPRCL, and the port has also tied with TNRDC to give better connectivity through southern or northern access roads, he said.

Railway link

S Anantharaman, Principal Chief Operations Manager, Southern Railway, said that unless a good hinterland is developed to feed the ports, large infrastructure like Railways will remain under utilised.

V Krishnaswamy, General Manager, Operations, KPL, giving the port’s operational highlights, said its peak handling was 32.21 mt in 2015-16 thanks to healthy handling of coal.

However, the traffic dropped by nearly 2 mt to 30.02 mt in 2016-17 due to a significant decline in coal handling.

In 2017-18, the port handled 30.45 mt, he said.

Coal handling dropped in the last two years as the share of renewable energy in Tamil Nadu’s power generation mix increased substantially, thus reducing coal demand for thermal power plants, he added.

Decline in coal handling by KPL in turn led to a drop in coal movement by Southern Railway in the last two years. It moved 15.83 mt in 2017-18, against 17.61 mt in 2016-17 and 18.78 mt in 2015-17, said Anantharaman.

LNG terminal

The LNG terminal at Kamarajar port is expected to be operational by September or October, Roy, said. “We will be ready to handle the future fuel of the world.”

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