Essar expanding Vizag port’s iron ore handling capacity

Hyderabad: Essar Ports on Sunday announced an expansion plan to upgrade the iron ore handling capacity of the Vizag terminal (outer harbour) at an investment of Rs 830 crore. As part of the expansion, the capacity of outer harbour will increase from 12.5 million metric tonne per annum (MMTPA) to 23 MMTPA. Upon completion of the expansion project, the upgraded terminal will have a loading rate of 8,000 TPH (tonne per hour), which will be among the highest for an Indian port..

Exporters on the east coast will benefit immensely from shorter turnaround times, which will translate into competitive freight costs
– Rajiv Agarwal MD, Essar Ports

Sailing Through

• Port can berth vessels up to 200,000DWT with a draft of 18 metres
• Iron ore loading rate will increase from 70,000 TPD to 120,000 TPD
• Essar Ports’ third-party cargo share will rise over 40%
• Targets spillage rate at near zero level from 0.18%
• Vizag Port will become a zero-emission, contamination-free zone soon

Ruia brothers-led Essar Ports is India’s second largest private port operator with operational capacity of 82 MTPA. Essar’s iron-ore handling terminal at Vizag port is an all-weather deep draft facility. Essar Vizag Terminals Limited (EVTL) took over the project in May 2015 on a design-build-finance-operate-transfer (DBFOT) basis for a period of 30 years.

Since then, the company has ramped up the iron ore loading capacity of the terminal from 25,000 TPD (tonne per day) to 70,000 TPD. After the completion of the upgradation-cum-modernisation project, the loading capacity will increase to 120,000 TPD, and the facility will be able to berth vessels up to 200,000 DWT, with a draft of 18 metres, on the outer harbour. The terminal has three existing berths which have been mechanized to 32 MMTPA capacity. Two berths are in the outer harbor and one in the inner harbor.

Rajiv Agarwal, MD, Essar Ports, said: “The facility is one-of-a-kind in India with a state-of-the-art mechanised system. It has one of the highest loading rates of 8,000 TPH. It has significant potential to increase our share of third-party cargo business to more than 40 percent. As a result, exporters on the east coast will benefit immensely from shorter turnaround times, which will translate into competitive freight costs.”

An increased focus on global best practices and sustainable environment protection has reduced spillage to a mere 0.18% at the terminal. “We aim to be the preferred choice of exporters in eastern India. The communities around the facility will benefit from the upgradation of the technology stack at the port. We are determined to cut down spillage and emissions to virtually near-zero levels,” said CH Satyanand, CEO, Essar Vizag Port.

EVTL’s iron ore handling terminal at Vizag port is an all-weather deep draft facility that has the wherewithal to serve the rapidly growing markets of south east Asia including China, Japan, and Korea. The state-of-the-art facilities require minimal human intervention, according to a release.

Completely mechanised facilities that comprise high capacity wagon tipplers for receiving cargo by rakes, and one of the longest integrated conveyor systems that transfer cargo to a stackyard that has high capacity multiple stackers. The stackyard has a capacity to store 0.6 MT of cargo. The system comprises high capacity reclaimers to load vessels up to Capesize through ship loaders. It is one of fastest loading systems ever seen in an Indian port.