The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Container terminal at Ennore Port in two years

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 24, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Container terminal at Ennore Port in two years

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, JULY 23. The Ennore Port Limited (EPL) will have a container terminal in the next two years, according to M. Raman, Chairman and Managing Director.

To be built on a build, own and transfer (BOT) model, the cost of the project would be Rs. 300 crores to Rs. 400 crores.

The port would issue a request for qualification (RFQ) in three to four months to select the terminal's developer. The project would be executed through an open tender basis, he told newsmen here today.

P&O Ports, which is running the container terminal at the Chennai port, would not be allowed to bid for the Ennore terminal and a decision to this effect (to bar P&O Ports from bidding) would be taken in the RFQ.

The new terminal would have two berths and provide an alternative infrastructure to the trade, which is now depending on the private-run container terminal at the Chennai port, operated by the Chennai Container Terminal Limited of P&O Ports. It could handle about 6 million TEUs (twenty foot equivalent units) a year and the depth in the terminal would be 15 metres to handle container vessels up to 8,000 TEUs capacity.

Boon to exporters

The Chairman said the new terminal would be a boon to exporters, as the market for container handling in the country would increase in the next 10 years to about 16 million TEUs. The north Indian traders would also divert their cargo to Ennore, he said.

Mr. Raman, who is also the acting chairman of the Chennai Port Trust (ChPT), said the Port Trust had plans to convert a general berth in the port into a container berth to supplement the efforts of the Chennai Container Terminal Limited.

The ChPT would invest Rs. 50 crores in the project to decongest the terminal, he said.

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