Paradip port's traffic throughput at 54.2 million tonnes (mt) in 2011-12 was lower by nearly 1.8 mt from 56.01 mt handled in 2010-11.

Giving this information to Business Line over phone from Paradip, the Chairman of the Paradip Port Trust (PPT), Mr G.J. Rao, attributed the shortfall mainly to the sharp drop in iron ore traffic.

During the year under review, the iron ore throughput was 6.55 mt as compared to 13.85 mt in 2010-11. “We thus lost more than seven million tonnes of iron ore traffic”. Mr Rao said, adding, “Dhamra port also took away about 2.5 mt of coal which otherwise should come to our port”.

The coking coal import through the port too was lower at 5.51 mt (6.2 mt), he said.

“The aggregate shortfall thus was more than 10 mt, large part of which was recovered and we concluded the year with a net shortfall of less than two million tonnes”. Mr Rao observed.

This was possible because, as the Chairman explained, the throughputs of several other commodities such as crude and petroleum products, thermal coal, fertiliser, both finished and raw materials, and containers posted growth and helped PPT to recover a sizeable chunk of the traffic lost.

Thus, the volume of crude and petroleum products jumped by 2.2 mt at 15.09 mt, thermal coal by 3.1 mt at 16.4 mt, finished fertilisers by one lakh tonnes at 2.81 lakh tonnes, fertiliser raw materials by 0.32 mt at 4.55 mt and containers by 122 per cent at 7,853 TEUs.

The volumes of miscellaneous other cargoes also increased, he said.

In terms of various operational parameters, the port recorded improvement.

Thus, the pre-berthing detention dropped to 1.17 ( 2.51 hrs), average turnaround time to 2.69 days (2.8 days) while average ship berth-day output increased to nearly 16,000 tonnes (14,243 tonnes), he added.

santanu@thehindu.co.in

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