Major ports record muted performance on fall in coal, fertilizer cargo

A consistent drop in shipments of thermal coal and raw fertilizers dragged cargo growth of major ports between April and October. Cargo throughput of major ports stagnated in the period, clocking a growth of only 0.44 per cent. While thermal coal shipments subsided 17.69 per cent, raw fertilizers dropped by 4.61 per cent.

The performance of liquid cargo- crude oil and derivative products like LPG  and LNG remained flat at 1.7 per cent. The major state owned ports of Kamarajar (Ennore), Chennai, New Mangalore, Mormugao and Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) witnessed degrowth in the period.

For the major ports, the positive takeaways came from iron ore and finished fertilizer cargo. Iron ore shipments including pellets, surged by 28 per cent, logging the best growth in cargo throughput while finished fertilizer cargo spiked by 22 per cent. Coking coal shipments were in the positive territory, moving up by 6.88 per cent in the period under review.

The major ports handled 405.39 million tonnes (mt) cargo in the period against 403.6 mt in the corresponding period of last fiscal, data from the Indian Ports Association said.

Deendayal Port handled the most cargo among the major ports with a volume of 71.09 mt followed by Paradip  at 64.46 mt.

The major ports had a combined  capacity of 1477 mt at the end of FY19. The Maritime Agenda 2010-20 envisages the major ports reaching capacity of 3130 mt by 2020. In FY19, the major ports had handled 699.05 mt of cargo.