Krishnapatnam Port to expand bouquet; build liquid bulk cargo, LNG terminal

As part of its expansion plans, the privately-run Krishnapatnam Port is looking to build a liquid bulk cargo terminal of one million tonnes capacity along with an RO-RO facility that would cater to the demand from the oil and power sectors.

According to Anil Yendluri, CEO & Director of Krishnapatnam Port, the liquid bulk cargo facility would be built in collaboration with LNG Bharat Group with an initial capacity of one million tonnes.

The overall project comprises an LNG floating storage, onshore buffer storage tank, re-gasification etc. This is expected to make available natural gas to the industrial regions spread over Rayalaseema and southern districts of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and also in northern areas of Tamil Nadu. It is likely to be the first LNG import terminal with its own natural gas pipeline to be commissioned on the east coast.

At present, the Krishnapatnam Port caters to traffic from all commodities accept Petroleum, Oil, and Lubricants (POL) Products. It caters to the intra Asian trade mainly headed to or from Bangladesh, Myanmar, Vietnam, Japan, and China. “Our port would act like a transshipment hub on the east coast of the country,” Yendluri said.

In 2015-16, Krishnapatnam Port handled cargo traffic of 118,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent unit or containers), which was ramped up to 256,000 TEUs in 2016-17 and by the end of 2017-18 is likely to be 500,000 TEUs. Current utilization of the port is 50-55 per cent.

The port has plans to expand its port operations by having 44 berths from 11 at present. It has an 18.5 metre draught in its harbour that helps in accommodating Capesize vessels. Along with a rollout of expansion plans, the draught is likely to be increased to 22 metres.

An initial investment of Rs 8 billion was made to commission the port on a build-operate-share-transfer basis for a period of 50 years.

The second phase of expansion is through and the third phase will be rolled out after a few years to handle 200-million-tonnes per annum capacity.

The Krishnapatnam Port currently handles fertilizers of all types and grades. It also handles 1.5 Million Metric tonnes of granite exports every year as break bulk predominantly. The port has been involved in handling and transporting of granite blocks with its own fleet, machinery, and equipment.

Its logistics business provides end-to-end logistics services — from ships to ports, to plants, intra-plant logistics and dispatching finished products to the final customer. The port is equipped with the new capacity for car exports out of India.