Kopt Floats Tender For Transloading Facility

Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) has invited expression of interest (EoI) from private parties to build transloading facility and floating terminal at Sandheads.

Sandheads offered over 50 metre draft, the highest among any major ports in the country. The draft would permit mid-stream transfer of dry bulk cargo through transloading.

It would allow largest of container ships to call on KoPT since it could unload cargo at the floating terminal.

According to the plan, smaller vessels would shuttle between transloading ship and floating terminal for transportation of cargo to Kolkata and Haldia which were final evacuation or aggregation points.

While Sandheads had huge draft, it was located in the cyclone prone zone in the mouth of Bay of Bengal. At Sandheads, 270 to 300 fair weather working days were available in a year.

In the remaining period of the year, the transloading point or the floating terminal could be shifted to more sheltered water at Sagar Island, 70 kms. inside the river, where partially loaded bulk carrier/mother container vessels could be handled.

Presently, around 10m draft was available at Sagar Island where a virtual jetty was under construction. This will be operated from April 2004 at 10.5m draft.

KoPT would increase the draft to 12.5m at Sagar Island. The port was targeting transloading of dry bulk cargo like coking coal, lime stone and iron ore.

The project would require large investments and private sector participation would be encouraged. The two facilities would be built on