Essar Ports to invest Rs 3,000 cr in projects

Essar Ports will be investing Rs 3,000 crore into expansion over the next three years as it has received environmental clearance and legal go-ahead from the government in four port projects, which were stuck for several years, according to a top company official.

"We have started receiving many pending approvals, which will ensure early commissioning of our four pending projects. These are the Vizag, Salaya, Hazira and Paradip terminals. For expansion of these projects, we will investing Rs 3,000 crore from this fiscal and are likely to be completed in the next three years," company managing director Rajiv Agarwal said over the weekend.

Agarwal said Essar Ports has already spent Rs 8,000 crore on expansion.

He said the company will spend about Rs 1,200 crore in expansion this year alone.

The projects will increase cargo handling capacity by 77 million tonnes per annum to 181 mt, he added.

He also expressed the hope that these projects will diversify the revenue profile for Essar Ports by improving the customer mix, Agarwal said.

On funding for these projects, he said Rs 555 crore will come form bank loans, and expects the funding to be in place in the next six weeks.

The company said it has Rs 5,500 crore debt on its books and its plans of dollarizing the same have been abandoned following RBI curbs on such debt raising.

Meanwhile, Essar Ports fourth quarter net profit fell 1% to Rs 90.8 crore against Rs 92.1 crore last year, hurt by fall in cargo volumes. However, its expects to increase cargo volumes at its ports by 44% to 75 mt by end of FY15.