Gangavaram Port works on expansion plan

Gangavaram Port in Andhra Pradesh is working on its expansion plan to raise its cargo handling capacity from the current 15 million tonne to 45 mn t.

The project involves addition of three multi-purpose berths and a coal handling terminal. The port has already completed award of major contracts and achieveing financial closure for the project.

While the three multi-purpose berths would each be 275 metre long, the coal berth will be handling up to 200,000 DWT ships. After the expansion, the port will be looking for more non-coal cargoes such as fertilisers, bauxite and food grains. Today coal accounts for 70 per cent of its total traffic of about 14 mn t.

It may be noted that the port, which is the deepest draft port in the country handling its 100th capesize vessel recently. The capesize vessel, ‘m.v. Collonges’, was carrying 1.40 lakh tonne of coking coal imported by Rashtriya Ispat Nigam. Capesize vessels are the largest ships that can carry dry-bulk cargo such as coal.

The port handled IndiaÂ’s first cape-size vessel in January 2009. During the last four years of operations, the port handled over 1,000 vessels, with a total throughput of over 53 million tonne, covering cargoes such as coking or non-coking coal, iron-ore, fertilisers, agri-products, project cargo and a variety of industrial raw-materials.

DVS Raju, Chairman and Managing Director, said it was only after Gangavaram port became operational that it was possible to handle fully laden cape-size coal import vessels at any port in India.