Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd (APSEZ), India’s biggest private port operator, signed a concession agreement with state-owned Deendayal Port Authority on Tuesday to equip and run a 5.7 million tonne (mt) capacity multipurpose terminal for handling clean cargo including containers at the port located in Kandla, Gujarat.
APSEZ won the 30-year contract in a tender by placing the highest royalty of Rs200 per ton.
“The concession agreement for operating the multipurpose terminal was signed with Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd on Tuesday,” a government official said.
A concession agreement sets out the terms and conditions of a port contract and puts the project in motion.
The contract will help APSEZ strengthen its presence in Deendayal Port (formerly Kandla Port) – India’s second biggest state-owned port by volumes handled – where it runs a dry bulk cargo terminal at Tuna Tekra, a satellite facility, since 2015.
The Berth No 13 has a 300 metres long quay that can accommodate a single large vessel of 75,000 dead weight tons (dwt) with draft of 14.5 metres and is currently being run by Deendayal Port Authority. The berth is being privatised through the public-private-partnership (PPP) route in line with the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) program of the government.
The National Monetisation Pipeline seeks to privatise operational infrastructure assets through the public-private-partnership route.
The optimal capacity of the facility will be 5.7 mt comprising 4.2 mt of dry bulk (including break bulk), clean cargo and 0.10 million twenty-foot equivalent units or TEU’s.
The multipurpose terminal is expected to handle machinery (project cargo), Ro-Ro cargo, sugar, salt, wooden logs, silica sand and containers. APSEZ will install clean cargo handling equipment such as rubber tyred gantry cranes, reach stackers, spreaders as well as dry bulk handling gears including payloaders, forklifts, dumpers, trailers, grab along with development of storage yard, covered shed, ancillary facilities like additional internal road and rail infrastructure.
