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Dhamra Port to Set Up Container And LNG Terminals

  • The Mint citing people familiar with the plan reported that Dhamra Port Co plans to set up terminals for handling liquefied natural gas and containers at the port to tap the growing demand for these.The port is equally owned by Larsen and Toubro Ltd and TATA Steel Ltd.Dhamra port will set up the two terminals with the help of strategic investors who will invest at least INR3,000 crore to INR 2,000 crore for a 2.5 million tonnes per annum LNG regasification facility and about INR 1,000 crore for a container terminal.
  • One of the persons mentioned earlier, a company executive on condition of anonymity because the discussions are confidential said that “In a meeting held on January 30th, the board of Dhamra Port Co. gave in principle approval to the management to proceed and sign memorandum of understandings with Indian Oil Corp Ltd and APM Terminals Management BV for setting up the LNG and container terminals.”State run oil refiner IOC had planned to set up a 5 million tonne per annum LNG regasification terminal at Union government controlled Ennore port in Tamil Nadu. This proposal has remained on paper for close to a decade.APM Terminals, a unit of Danish shipping and energy giant AP Moller Maersk Group A/S, is the world’s third biggest container port operator. The group also operates Maersk Line, the world’s largest container shipping company.
  • The container terminal will have a capacity to load up to 500,000 standard containers a year initially, and can be scaled to handle one million standard containers, depending on demand.Over the past few years, container traffic at India’s ports has been expanding at an average 15% a year. At this rate, container traffic is estimated to reach 38.91 million standard containers by 2020, up from about nine million now, according to a 10 year plan unveiled by the shipping ministry in January 2011. The existing capacity is for 11.81 million standard containers.Dhamra port was awarded the rights by the Orissa government in 2004 to develop and operate a port that can load up to 109 million tonnes of various cargo a year from 13 berths.

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