Iron ore, finished fertilizers help ports tide over falling volumes in coal

Vishakapatnam port aced other ports in cargo volumes with 10.98% growth

Iron ore and finished fertilizers shipments have enabled major ports to tide over falling volumes in coal and other miscellaneous cargo.

Iron ore shipped through major ports soared 39 per cent between April and January of this financial year. Growth in the finished fertilizers cargo too was robust at 21.55 per cent.

Thermal or steam cargo shipments plunged 14.98 per cent in the period whereas coking coal traffic growth was flat at 1.1 per cent. Crude oil and petroleum products witnessed slackened growth of 2.5 per cent in the period under review. Raw fertilizers traffic faced a degrowth of 2.8 per cent.

Owing to lacklustre volume growth in most of the commodities, major ports could manage to log meagre growth of 1.14 per cent in overall cargo throughput. The ports at Kamarajar (-7.31 per cent), Chennai (-10.42 per cent), New Mangalore (-12.96 per cent), Mormugao (-11.85 per cent) and Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust- JNPT (-3.35 per cent) recorded negative year-on-year  growth in the period under review.

Vishakapatnam port aced other ports in cargo volumes with 10.98 per cent growth. None of the other major ports could register double-digit growth.