HDC crude cargo target in limbo as Haldia-Paradip pipeline starts

While the Kolkata Port Trust(KoPT) has written twice to the Union Shipping ministry to revise downward its cargo targets for the fiscal as the port will lose crude cargo the Paradip-Haldia pipeline, the Haldia Dock Complex(HDC) has been set a target of 42.7 million tonnes(mt).

The 300 kilometer Paradip-Haldia pipeline has already started trasnporting crude and the Indian Oil Corporation(IOC) has indicated that it will shift eight mt cargo to the pipeline. Highly placed sources in KoPT informed that the ministry has retained its crude cargo target of 16 mt for Haldia from last year. This comprises 12mt of crude and 4 mt of petro products.

KoPT authorities had asked for a revised target of 33.38 mt for this year for HDC, and around 10.1 mt for Kolkata Dock System(KDS). It wrote two letters to the ministry in April and May consecutively, but has received no response.

The source admitted that it would be difficult to achieve target this year.

KDS has so far handled no crude traffic in the first three months of the year. It usually picks up October onwards.

As par latest figures up to June 22, HDC has handled 2.5 mt lesser crude cargo over last year same period. It has handled around 0.7 mt in April-May this year compared to 2.3 mt last year.

As for bulk cargo, the ministry has set a target of 8.9 mt for iron ore this year from 8.7 mt last year. KoPT has handled 1.054 mt of iron ore so far compared to 1.834 mt last year.

While thermal coal is flat at 0.401 mt, coking coal has surged to 1.035 mt from 0.923 mt. Fertiliser cargo has dropped in the first two months of the year to 59,000 ton from 0.11 mt last year.

On the container front, however, KDS has bucked the national trend. While all-India container cargo is down by 10 per cent so far this year, KDS has handled 57,380 twenty-equivalent units(TEU) this year, up 11.47 per cent. Haldia, on the other hand has seen a 24 per cent drop in container traffic at 17,610 TEUs. The shipping ministry has set a target of 3.05 lakh TEUs for KDS and 1.3 lakh TEUs for HDC.