KOCHI: The long-awaited relaxation in the cabotage law, which prohibited foreign-flagged vessels from engaging in coastal shipping of the country, is expected to give a fillip to the trans-shipment volumes handled at Cochin Port. At present, volumes at International Container Transhipment Terminal (ICTT) stand at 6 per cent out of the over five lakh TEUs container cargo and this is expected to go up by 12 per cent in the current fiscal.
Last fiscal, breaking a 10-year-old jinx, the Cochin Port Trust, one of the oldest public-sector establishments in the country, recorded a profit of `13.5 crore and an annual growth of 10 per cent. Under the chairmanship of A V Ramana, CPT plans to leverage all the possible opportunities, increase efficiency and cut costs to sustain the growth momentum.“Improving efficiency in spite of the cargo volumes rising, we are in the process of decreasing the turn around time (TAT) for vessels to 31.75 hours while we are expected to handle 32 MMT cargo this fiscal,” Ramana told Express.
He added TAT in FY15-16 was 52.24 hours while handling 22.1 MMT, which was systematically brought down to 36.96 hours in FY17-18 even when the cargo volumes rose to 29.14 MMT.CPT expects the parcel volumes to grow from 18,825 TMS recorded in FY15-16 to 24,973 TMS in the current fiscal year. While container volumes are set to hit 6,62,000 this fiscal from 4,20,000 in FY15-16.
Banking on the expansion of the BPCL refinery capacity to from 7.5 to 15.5 million metric tonnes per annum (MMTPA), Petronet LNG capacity expansion to 5 MMTPA and the proposed fourth cement terminal, CPT expects to steadily increase its revenues from its captive cargo establishments.At present, three cement terminals — Ambuja, UltraTech and Penna — are in operation and handle 7.83 lakh tonnes of cement annually.
Malabar Cements has proposed to set up the fourth terminal by 2019 with an annual capacity of 5 lakh tonnes. Cement being a high-volume, low-value product, lower-cost sea transport is very important as a game changer in logistics.
“With the GST for bunkering of foreign and coastal vessels being reduced to 5 per cent from 28 per cent, there was a considerable growth in the area, but we are in the process of final discussions with the Union Government to bring it down further to pre-GST levels - 0.5 per cent,” said Ramana.A bunkering barge jetty at Puthuvypeen to be readied at the cost of Rs 34.57 crore by the CPT is nearing completion. Also, a 240-crore multi-user liquid terminal jointly developed in association with Indian Oil Corporation at Puthuvypeen with a capacity of 4.10 MTPA is also being readied.
Furthermore, with the slashing of docking charges for cruise liners by 30 per cent and its upcoming International Cruise Terminal at Ernakulam Wharf and proposed air-taxi facilities, CPT is eyeing about 50 large vessels with 65,000 high-net-worth passengers, this fiscal.