Ennore port wants to raise capacity utilisation

MA Bhaskarachar, the new Chairman of Ennore Port wants to improve the utilization of various berths and increase the portÂ’s capacity to handle cargoes other than coal.

By June this year, the entire port, including the approach channel and turning circle, will have a draft of 18 meter to handle big vessels. This is going to be a major advantage for the port, he said.

Bhaskarachar is planning to award contracts for half a dozen major projects in 2013-14. These include, among others, the Rs 4,300-crore LNG project and the container terminal project.

In the long run, Ennore port hopes to overcome competition from private ports such as Katupalli and Krishnapatnam by leveraging its location advantage and better rail and road connectivity. In November, Ennore port announced a 20 percent rebate across the board.

The port has embarked on a major capacity addition. This includes building a couple of berths for the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) to handle coal. The shift of coal handling from Chennai port to Ennore has come as a boon for the latter, which is enjoying a ‘bull run’ in cargo handling, especially coal.

For the nine month ending December 2012, the port showed the highest growth in cargo handling because of the shift in coal cargo. When other ports struggled with no growth, Ennore port notched up 18 percent growth.