Business Line reported that all commodities, barring thermal coal, registered a decline in loading at major ports for the first three months of the current fiscal. The ports handled 138.5 million tonne of cargo, which is 5.49% lower than the same period last year.
The trend can be explained due to the weakening rupee, with India being a net importer of cargo. Moreover, exports could also have been impacted by the Euro zone crisis and the slowdown in the US.
It must, however, be noted that the total traffic handled takes into account the 2.55% growth in weight of containers handled and not the 0.33% dip in the number of containers.
The almost 11% growth in thermal coal during April to June helped major ports reduce the rate of decline of total cargo handled, which was at a steeper 5.7% in the April to May period. Most of the incremental thermal coal arrived at the ports of Ennore, Paradip, and Mumbai.
Containerised traffic in June inched closer to that of June 2011. The ports handled 6.31 million TEU containers in June, against 6.34 millions in the same period last year.
For the three month period, all major ports handled 1.94 million TEUs, down 0.33%
Two ports that reflected an improvement during the trimester were Kolkata Dock system and Visakhapatnam, with JN Port handling almost the same level of TEUs.
The trend of containers getting heavier continued with the tonnage showing a 2.55% growth despite a 0.33% dip in TEUs.
On an overall basis, ports that reflected a growth were Ennore (35%), Kochi (13.77%) supported by raw fertiliser, Mumbai (13.74%) supported by a mix of thermal coal and raw fertiliser, JN Port (1.99%) and Kandla (0.09%).
The major ports which are administered by the Central Government account for 60% of the cargo. The remaining is handled by non major ports - such as Dhamra, promoted by Larsen & Toubro and TATA Krishnapatnam by Marg Group, Adani Port and Essar, which are large corporate groups with captive demand from their power plants, steel plants and refineries.
Source - Business Line
(www.steelguru.com)
