State-owned ports see rise in cargo volumes
Cargo volume grows by a modest 1.78% to 555.5 mt in the year ended 31 March, reversing two consecutive years of fall
Bangalore: The volume of cargo handled by India’s dozen state-owned ports grew by a modest 1.78% in the year ended 31 March, reversing two consecutive years of decline, mainly on the back of higher coal shipments.
The 12 ports handled a combined 555.50 million tonnes (mt) of various commodities such as crude oil, petroleum products, iron ore, coal, container cargo and fertilizers in fiscal year 2013-14, according to data from Indian Ports Association (IPA), which represents the 12 ports.
In 2012-13, these ports loaded 545.79 mt, a drop of 2.58% over the previous year.
The 12 ports are located in Kolkata, Paradip, Visakhapatnam, Ennore, Chennai, Tuticorin, Kochi, New Mangalore, Mormugao, Kandla, Mumbai and Navi Mumbai. Together, they handle about 58% of India’s external trade by volume shipped by sea.
For the seventh year in a row, Kandla port in Gujarat was India’s biggest state-owned cargo handler by volume, handling 87 mt of cargo, but down 7.06% from the 93.62 mt it loaded a year ago.
During the year, Kandla port lost its status as India’s biggest commercial port—whether state-owned or private—to Mundra port run by Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd, located just 60km away.
Strong coal (both thermal and coking) shipments through the 12 ports played a big part in reversing two years of decline in cargo volume.
Thermal coal loadings grew 22.09% to 71.6 mt from 58.6 mt a year earlier as power stations imported more coal. This helped Ennore port in Tamil Nadu post strong volume growth of around 55% at 22.12 mt, compared with 14.2 mt a year earlier.
Paradip port in Odisha also benefited from the surge in coal shipments, posting an overall growth of around 20% at 68 mt from 56.6 mt a year ago.
Coking coal shipments through the 12 ports jumped around 18% to 33.1 mt from 28 mt a year ago.
The state-owned ports handled 7.47 million standard containers in fiscal 2014, down 3% from the 7.70 loaded a year earlier.
Jawaharlal Nehru port, India’s busiest container gateway located near Mumbai, loaded 4.16 million standard containers in the year to March. In fiscal 2013, JN port loaded 4.26 million standard containers.
“The lower container volumes in fiscal 2014 was mainly due to an internal strike at two of our private terminals which lasted for a considerable period," a spokesman for JN port said. Iron-ore shipments, once accounting for a big chunk of the cargo shipped through the ports, suffered a decline of 13.38% as a court-imposed ban on the export of the key steel-making commodity continued.
In the year ended 31 March, the 12 ports loaded 24.7 mt of iron ore, compared with 28.5 mt a year earlier. In effect, India’s iron-ore shipments have tumbled to 24 mt in four years from 100.33 mt in 2009-10.
Shipments out of India, the world’s third-largest iron-ore exporter, declined because of a ban on exports from Karnataka, which accounted for a quarter of the nation’s annual exports. In July 2010, Karnataka banned the export of iron ore in a bid to curb alleged illegal mining in the mineral-rich Bellary-Hospet belt. Karnataka is the second-largest producer of iron ore in the country.
Fertilizer loadings declined 17.57% to 6.1 mt from 7.4 mt a year earlier.
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