14 firms put in RFQ for Vizhinjam port

Vizhinjam International Seaport Limited (VISL) today announced that the project had received 14 submissions as a part of the RFQ (request for qualification) process. The RFQ was called on November 25, 2010.

Several Indian infrastructure companies such as GMR, GVK and Reliance have submitted the RFQ, in addition to consortiums of foreign players from Turkey, UK and Australia. Among the companies which submitted the RFQ were Gammon Infrastructure Projects; Mundra Port; Essar; Global Yatirim Holding and STFA consortium (Turkey); Jaiprakash Associates; Patel Engineering and Limak (UK) consortium; Sterlite Industries; consortium of SCI, SKIL, HCCL; consortium of Welspun Infratech and Leighton Contractors; Nagarjuna Construction Company and Condor Brookfield consortium.

An empowered committee chaired by Sanjeev Kaushik, CEO and managing director, VISL, opened and evaluated the bids, and the pre-qualified applicants would be announced on January 19, with RFP submission deadline set for January 23.

The proposed port is located at 16km south of the state capital Thiruvananthapuram. The geographical location of Vizhinjam port is the major advantage to India which is much closer to East-West shipping route and offers proximity to international route.

The first phase of the project is estimated to cost Rs 2,620 crore, of which Rs 970 crore would be borne by the private party / consortium for the port superstructure. The remaining Rs 1,650 crore in civil infrastructure will be provided by the government through an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract, to be bid out in early 2011. VISL is also raising this money through a consortium of banks led by State Bank of Travancore (SBT).

The volume of container traffic is expected to rise from 238,000 TEU in the first year of operations to 822,000 TEU by 2020. Container revenues are estimated to be more than $ 7 million in the first year of operations, to touch $ 35 million by 2020.