KPT invites global bids for new oil jetty

India's largest port, Kandla Port Trust (KPT) has invited global tenders for development of oil jetty to handle liquid cargo and ship bunkering terminal at old Kandla. The entire project is estimated to cost Rs 233 crore and will be developed on build, operate, transfer (BOT) basis under public private partnership (PPP) mode.

The proposed oil jetty will have the handling capacity of 3.4 million tonnes (MT) of liquid cargo per annum (PA).

"With this project, our liquid cargo handling capacity will get a sharp increase from the current 1.5 MTPA. Also, this will be the first instance in India, where a ship bunkering terminal is also being developed along with an oil jetty through a PPP mode," said a senior official of KPT.

KPT operates four oil jetties, while two oil jetties located at KPT are operated by IFFCO and Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) respectively.

KPT has invited request for qualifications (RFQs) from the global players for the project, which will have a concession period of 30 years. The sale of RFQ will begin from August 28, 2012 and the last date of submission of applications is October 11, 2012. A pre-application conference will be held on September 26, 2012.

"We are planning to finalise the entire process of selection of an operator by March 31, 2012," said the official.

The jetty will have the width of around 300 meters and will be able to receive vessels with 13 meters draught. KPT will also provide 12 acres land to the operator to build storage capacities.

The new facility will be utilized to supply bunkers to the vessels and minor spare parts. Also, KPT is in the process to deepen the existing oil jetties to handle 13 and 14 meter draught vessels.

Kandla Port is country's largest port in terms of cargo handling. For the financial year 2011-12, the port handled 82.50 million tonnes of cargo throughput.