Traffic at Indian ports jumps after trouble in the Colombo port

The political and economic uncertainties in Sri Lanka and the congestion at the Colombo port are forcing more ships to turn towards Indian ports in recent months.

According to industry bodies, the past one month saw diversion of around 5-10 per cent of normal cargo from Colombo to Indian ports, with Chennai, Ennore, Mundra and VO Chidambaranar Port in Thoothukudi being major beneficiaries.

The Kochi International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT) in Vallarpadam, India’s first transshipment terminal, saw an increase of 62 per cent in traffic to 13,609 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) in March 2022, compared to 8,394 TEU during March 2021, due to the crisis in Sri Lanka.

In a transshipment terminal, a cargo or container is moved from one vessel to another while in transit to its final destination.

“In recent times, we have seen considerable diversion of transshipment traffic from Colombo to Kochi. There are vessels that are skipping Colombo cargo, because of the longer time taken for transshipment,” said Cochin Port Trust Chairperson M Beena. “Kochi is a natural alternative to Colombo now,” she said. The transshipment container traffic in Kochi saw an increase from 36,183 TEU in 2019-20 to 86,000 TEU in 2020-21 and 156,000 TEU in 2021-22.

Chennai and Kamarajar (Ennore) ports jointly saw a 26 per cent hike in cargo traffic to 87.3 million metric tonnes in 2021-22, according to reports. “The Colombo port is almost at a standstill. There are no trailers to evacuate containers and cargo from the port. In the last one month, we are seeing a considerable shift in normal traffic to the ports in Tamil Nadu — Thoothukudi and Chennai now, due to the congestion in Sri Lanka,” said S Narasimhan, president, India-Asean-Sri Lanka Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Narasimhan said he expects more traffic to get diverted to Kochi transshipment terminal and ports in Tamil Nadu in the coming months.

The Container Shipping Lines Association (CSLA) is also of the opinion that the current economic situation in Sri Lanka was impacting the port operations in Colombo. It stated that power cuts, shortage of diesel for transporters and infrastructure issues were slowing down the port operations in Colombo. “Transshipment between the feeder and mainline vessels are particularly impacted since they call at two different terminals. The lines are therefore exploring other options, including diversion of cargo from the east coast of India to the west — Mundra for instance — to try and help the situation,” said Sunil Vaswani, executive director of CSLA.

The association is of the view that as far as transshipment of cargo was concerned, Tuticorn couldn’t become an alternative to Colombo due to the limitation on the size of the vessels that it could take.

“Chennai or Ennore could possibly be options but again the issue of deviation could pose a problem particularly since the mainliners are already struggling to keep to their schedules. Vallarpadam could therefore possibly be another option, although all these options are still a work in progress,” Vaswani added.  

For the period of April to February, the Ennore port saw a 56 per cent increase in traffic, while Chennai saw 14 per cent and Cochin around 13 per cent rise. The data shared by the Indian Ports Association showed a 7 per cent increase in traffic handled by V O Chidambaranar port.