October 14, 2008
East Coast Railway’s iron ore traffic set to scale new peak
BL reported that major coal transporter East Coast Railway is set to emerge as a big hauler of iron ore.
In 2006-07, East Coast Railway handled an estimated 42 million tonnes of coal or 50% of the total traffic of about 84 million tonnes. The total traffic target for 2007-08 has been set at 93 million tonnes, of which the share of coal will be about 47 million tonnes.
Side by side, the iron ore throughput is poised for a big jump. In 2006-07, the East Coast Railway handled a total of about 11 million tonnes of iron ore comprising 7.3 million tonnes for exports and another about 3 million tonnes for domestic plants. In 2007-08, the throughput is estimated to rise to 16 million tonnes to 17 million tonnes comprising 12 million tonnes of exports and another 4 million tonnes to 5 million tonnes of domestic movement.
East Coast Railway’s coal movement received a setback in the first half of the year as coal loading took a big hit in Talcher mines due to a variety of reasons. Fortunately, the situation at Talcher has improved now and the daily loading at present is of the order of 25 rakes a day. The coal stock at the railheads is estimated at more than 200,000 tonnes, equivalent of 3 days loading.
However, the level of loading of imported coal at the ports is not too satisfactory. At the Visakhapatnam port, coal import for Khaperkheda thermal plant of the Maharashtra State Electricity Board has dropped significantly. Official of East Coast Railway said that “Last year, we handled 20 rakes a month on an average but the average so far this has dropped to 10 rakes and there has been no loading at all in the first 3 weeks of December 2007,”
The daily loading for the Bhilai Steel Plant and Visakhapatnam Steel Plant remains unchanged at 4 rakes each. At Paradip, cargo inducement is adequate, enough to load about 8 to 10 rakes a day. But the problem of East Coast Railway is that it cannot ensure a steady supply of that many rakes to the port for loading imported coal. The reason is that the rakes carrying iron ore to the port for exports are generally used for back loading of imported coal. The port, as East Coast Railway sources point out, cannot handle more than 7 iron ore rakes a day, with the result only that many rakes can be made available for back loading.
