India’s Nhava Sheva Port (JNPA) ended 2023 on a strong note, with its annual container throughput reaching a new high.
The port saw yearly containerised traffic rise 7% year-over-year to 6.3 million TEUs, according to provisional data provided by the port.
Of six container-handling facilities at Nhava Sheva, PSA Mumbai, also known as Bharat Mumbai Container Terminals (BMCT), led the pack, racking up about 2.07 million TEUs, an impressive 30% gain over 2022.
APM Terminals Mumbai, or Gateway Terminals India (GTI), which had to deal with capacity constraints due to an equipment upgrade programme, handled 1.52 million TEUs, followed by Nhava Sheva International Container Terminal (NSICT) at 1.18 million TEUs and Nhava Sheva International Gateway Terminal (NSIGT) at 1.12 million TEUs.
Both NSICT and NSIGT are operated by DP World.
From April through December, the first nine months of fiscal year 2023-24, Nhava Sheva has seen combined volumes expand 6.8% year-over-year to 4.75 million TEUs. This trend positions the port to surpass the 6.05 million TEUs it reported for fiscal 2022-23.
The strong performance is significant for Nhava Sheva as it comes amid fierce market challenges from Mundra Port, the Adani Group’s flagship entity located some 300 nautical miles away.
Looking ahead as trade volumes grow, Nhava Sheva is developing a new a green-field, deep-water port at Vadhavan, about 120 miles north of the coast. DP World recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Nhava Sheva port authority expressing interest in the project.
“DP World has been a strong partner for us over the last two and a half decades and we are confident that their support will go a long way in making Vadhvan port a reality,” said JNPA chairman Sanjay Sethi.
“We are excited to partner with JNPA in exploring trade opportunities that can be unlocked by developing Vadhavan Port along the west coast of the country,” Jibu K. Itty, CEO of DP World Nhava Sheva, noted.
Itty added: “We believe that the proposed location has the requisite features to transform Vadhavan into a great port that can bring incremental prosperity to the region.”
The Vadhavan project has been designed with a broader goal to prevent potential spillover volumes out of Nhava Sheva from travelling to its private competitors, notably Mundra and Hazira, given that there is little room for further capacity expansion at the public port after the completion of PSA’s Phase II development, now in the final stages.
“This expansion (at Nhava Sheva) will effectively double the terminal’s existing current capacity, enabling it to handle 4.8 million TEUs by the first quarter of 2025 and enable PSA Mumbai to play its part in supporting the growth of the Indian economy,” Singapore-based PSA said in a recent statement.
