Coal news and updates

Waiting period at Dhamra Port rise to 30 days on increased arrival of Cape Vessels

June 24: Dhamra Port on the east coast of India, one of the newly built ports in India, is witnessing a huge waiting period in berthing of vessels due to arrival of large number of cape vessels at the port, an industry source said.

“The port is right now having a waiting period of around 30 days as companies like Tata Steel, Adani and even SAIL are bringing their vessels to the port because of limited capacity in handling of cape vessels at Paradip and Haldia ports,” the source said.

“As of date (June 24), six cape vessels – two each from Australia, South Africa and Indonesia - are waiting for berthing and four more vessels are lined up by end of the week. It takes at least four days to discharge cargo from one cape size vessel,” the source added.

Explaining the reason for increase in waiting period at the port, the source said, “It is mainly due to pre-monsoon impact wherein a number of companies such as Tata Steel, Adani Enterprises and SAIL are bringing their cargo to the port for use during the monsoon.”

In fact, Adani Enterprises, which till recently used Paradip port for supply of coal to NTPC’s Farakka and Kahalgaon plants, is using Dhamra Port.

“The port is facing the problem because it has a booked capacity of handling 1.0 million tons of coal cargo per month, but being the only part on this part of the country that can handle cape vessels, it is getting larger number of such vessels,” the source added.

According to information available with ICMW, Dhamra Port had handled 1.7 million tons of cargo in May and 1.2 million tons in April. It may handle more than 2.00 million tons of coal cargo in June against the capacity of 1.0 million tons per month.

Another problem with the port is that it gets intimation from Tata Steel about their vessel movement only a month before the actual arrival of their cape vessels, the source said, adding, “Dhamra Port is booked till first week of August based on existing requests from customers.”

“The situation is such that many smaller vessels are being diverted to Paradip port because of the huge waiting period at Dhamra Port,” the source said.

Meanwhile, Paradip Port is believed to be keeping a close watch on the companies who are using Dhamra Port and has indirectly indicated to those who use both Paradip and Dhamra ports that  ‘if you are my customer, do not go to Dhamra or your vessels will get delayed berthing at Paradip.”