"Transshipment capability & issues of Indian ports"

Vishal Kashav: Nidhi Singh

MBA Port & Shipping Management MBA Energy Trading

UPES UPES

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ABSTRACT:

India has a wide and rich coast line of 7,516 kms which can be used to its best, It is divided into

two parts, East coast & West coast. There are 187 major & non-major ports on the coastline. It is

difficult to define transshipment ports in these terms as most of them target international traffic

and few are specialized in coastal trade.

Transshipment ports have highly modern & efficient infrastructure facilities for handling

different types of commodities. As operations takes place at a very high speed at transshipment

ports. They are considered to be the busiest ports because the ratio of transit cargo handled by

these ports is very high compared to locally bound cargo. Singapore port, Colombo port (Sri

lanka) and Salalah(Oman) are the best examples of transshipment hubs near to India, which are

been used by India for its transshipments. Therefore, such ports need to be located near to

International shipping routes & need to posses deep draft to accommodate large vessels. The

vessel sizes are increasing and can be seen in the huge capacity of Maersk vessels like Sovereign

Maersk class(1997) carry 8,100 TEUs to Triple-E class(2013) 18,270 TEUs. Maersk has set new

standards & records for the shipping industry and touched a milestone by designing biggest ever

container vessel named "Maersk Mc Kinney Moller" in the year 2013.

Colombo & Singapore handle approximately 1.5 TEUs of transshipment from India. East coast

of India contributes around 1 million TEUs of transshipment cargo. All major ports like Mumbai,

Chennai, Mangalore & Tuticorin have natural draft of 10-14 meters whereas Vizhinjam has a

draft of 20 meters, being just 10 Nautical miles far from the International route, it is also better

located than ports like mumbai & Chennai which are both 480 Nautical miles away. More over,

Vizhinjam is blessed with low tidal variation conditions which makes it better compare to other

ports. Vizhinjam holds the maximum potential to be the future transshipment hub. Hence

investment in Vizhinjam port will yield very high returns.

Ref:

• Shipping, Marine & Ports Exposition 2012, Report by Deloitte(june 2012)

• Article on "Transshipment hub in india" by Maurya Velupula, The Economic times

(October 16, 2007)