Indian Ports on the Move
Throughput at major Indian state-owned ports shows 6.8% Increase
Total throughput at major Indian state-owned ports increased 6.8% in the eight months from April, which is the start of the country’s fiscal year, as gains in the handling of containers, crude oil and miscellaneous cargo offset lower coal and fertiliser volumes.
These ports handled 424.1m tonnes of cargo between April and November 2016, compared to 397.2m tonnes in the year-ago period as volumes picked up after the monsoon season, recent data from the Indian Ports Association shows.
Activity tends to slow during the monsoon, from June to September, affecting mostly the west coast. Construction activity is affected by rains and rough seas restrict shipping movements.
Container throughput during the period rose 4.2% to 5.6m teu from 5.4m teu. Close to half of that was handled by Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, where volumes rose to 3m teu from 2.97m teu. The next-busiest container port in the country was Chennai, where volumes declined to 1.01m teu from 1.05m teu.
For shipments of crude, products, liquefied petroleum gas and liquefied natural gas, traffic at the state-owned ports increased 9.3% to 140m tonnes from 128m tonnes.Meanwhile, the volume of iron ore being handled more than doubled to 26.1m tonnes from 10.9m tonnes, with Mormugao in south Goa seeing 6.9m tonnes compared to 0.7m tonnes in the year-ago period.