The Kochi port has shortlisted five companies for its multi-user liquid terminal (international bunkering services terminal) to design, finance, build, operate and transfer basis for a 30-year concession period.

The shortlisted firms include Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd, Kochi Refinery, Mundra Port and Special Economic Zone, Ahmedabad, IOT Infrastructure and Energy Services and Gammon Infrastructure Projects Ltd, both based in Mumbai, and IMC Ltd, Chennai.

The Rs 200-crore project will have a total capacity of 4.10 million tonnes a year, with LPG accounting for 0.68 million tonnes and bunkers and POL products being 3.42 million tonnes. The facility is expected to be commissioned in the third quarter of 2013, the port officials said.

The bunkering terminal will come up adjacent to the LPG storage facility being built by Indian Oil Corporation on 15 hectares. A 120-metre barge loading facility and 40,000 KLs of storage facility will be part of the terminal. The Kochi Port will make available 2.5 hectares within the Puthuvypeen Special Economic Zone and 19 hectares of water area on an annual licence fee basis and make the concessionaire a co-developer in the port-based special economic zone.

The Port has also decided to earmark another six hectares for additional storage facilities, the land being put to use on a competitive lease basis. Agencies other than the concessionaire will be permitted to import bunkers and other POL cargo for storage and allowed to lift bunkers from the terminal. The Tariff Authority for Major Ports has already passed orders on the tariffs.

According to port officials, Kochi can leverage its strategic location on one of the busiest sea routes in the world to become a bunkering hub. The presence of a coastal refinery owned by public sector Bharat Petroleum Corporation, the presence of India’s biggest ship building facility at Cochin Shipyard and low VAT rate of 0.5 per cent on sale of fuel and lubricants to foreign going vessels are some of the factors that favours the setting up of a bunkering terminal here, the officials added.

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