Category Archives: Shipping

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has approved Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) composite scheme to acquire Sarguja Rail Corridor Pvt Ltd(SRCPL) effective from its appointment date of April 1, 2021. APSEZ said that the company will now consolidate all its rail assets under a single business entity Adani Tracks Management Services Pvt Ltd. “This consolidation allows APSEZ, which is targeting 2,000 km of track length by 2025, to participate in Indian Railways PPP (public-private partnership) projects without having to compete with similar businesses in the Adani portfolio, a position that is in full alignment with the equity interest of minority shareholders,” it said. The statement said that once consolidated, SRCPL will add Rs 450 crore or five percent of APSEZ’s total Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization).

Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) has several green project initiatives. Union Minister, MoPSW, Sarbanand Sonwal, chaired a meeting with all major ports, CSL and IWAI to review the progress on various green initiatives implemented as per Maritime India Vision 2030 for the developments of green ports and green shipping in India. Highlighting JNPT’s green port initiatives, Sanjay Sethi, IAS, Chairman, JNPT, said, “JNPT has prepared an action plan covering all Port activities, including cargo handling, storing, evacuation and many other activities related to environmental protection. JNPT provides shore power supply to tugs and port crafts, the induction of these E-RTGCs, and many such initiatives. We have installed solar panels at JNPT inducted electric vehicles. JN Port has prepared an action plan covering all activities of the Port including cargo handling, storing, evacuation and many other activities related to environmental protection.” Under the Maritime India Vision 2030, JNPT intends to use 60% of renewable energy, Adoption of Multi Fuel (CNG/Electric / LNG), Shore Power, LNG Bunkering, Energy Efficiency Smart Lightning, Green Belt Cover, Water Conservation/Sewage Treatment, Upcoming solar plants of 2.5MWp. Jawaharlal Nehru port is committed to sustainable development, and the Port takes adequate measures to maintain ecological balance. The total land available with JNPT is around 3402 hectares out of this, 1147 hectares area (34%) of the Port is under green cover, including mangroves. The Port’s ecosystem consists of rich and diversified flora and fauna. To address the Global climate change problem at the port level, the Port has taken the initiative to acquire “Green Port Status”.

With the union government set to present the budget 2022-23 on Feb 1, 2022, the domestic rating agency ICRA shared its pre-budget expectations on ports, shipping, and logistics sector. The rating agency expects the government to increase budgetary support for flagship projects including Sagarmala and inland waterways, providing a boost to the execution pace and investments. Furthermore, enhancing the connectivity across India and speedy implementation of projects such as Bharatmala for the road logistics sector, dedicated freight corridor (DFC) for the railways, and Sagarmala for the waterways will be of prime focus to the center in the coming budget, ICRA believes. There has been traction in policy initiatives for the ports sector in the current fiscal with the operationalization of the Indian Major Ports Act, 2021 and notification of market-based tariffs under the Act, notification of the revised Model Concession Agreement for PPP projects, and passage of the Inland Vessel Act, 2021 in both houses of Parliament, ICRA said. While the slew of measures has been favorable for the sector and is expected to aid in attracting private sector investments, increased budgetary support from the center for such flagship projects will indefinitely boost the execution pace and investments, it stated.

Shipping lines repositioned a record 1.85 million containers in the country in 2021 as demand for exports surged and exporters continued to be hurt by an acute shortage of containers, according to lobbying body Container Shipping Lines Association (CSLA). Repositioning of containers is getting an empty container from a port of surplus to one where they are scarce. Shipping lines had to resort to this strategy as container shortage soared across the world as several container ships got stuck in ports amid the pandemic and various restrictions even as merchandise exports from India grew 105% year-on-year to $354 billion in 2021. “Several new services were introduced between India and various trades like the US, Europe, far East, West Africa and Latin America by carriers like MSC, Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd, CMA CGM, HMM, ZIM, Feedertech and others,” said CSLA official. “These helped in increasing the weekly capacity from Indian origins to these destinations by about 35,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent unit, or a 20-foot container) a week,” it said. “Annualised, this works out to an increase in the vessel capacity by about 1.80 million TEUs.”

Deputy Head of Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organization (PMO) Jalil Eslami has said direct container shipping lines have been established between Iran’s southeastern port of Chabahar and two Western Indian ports of Nhava Sheva, and Kandla. According to Eslami, regular container service with a traffic schedule of 10 to 15 days is performed by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) through these lines, the PMO portal reported. The official noted that PMO is going to offer the necessary tariff incentives and facilities on tolls and transportation costs to support the traders that use the lines. He pointed out that according to the schedule, the first container service through the mentioned route will enter Iran’s Shahid Beheshti port on February 16. Iran and India had previously launched shipping lines between Chabahar and the Indian ports of Mumbai, and Mundra. The first shipping route between the two countries was put into operation in 2017 between Iran’s Chabahar port and Mumbai.

A digital platform for the Gati Shakti national master plan of infrastructure projects will be ready by March 31, 2022. “All infrastructure projects will be mapped on the national masterplan [portal]. 75% of data from Central ministries on their infrastructure projects have already been uploaded. We are now training State governments to share their data. We are hopeful that the national masterplan [portal] will be ready by March-end,” said Amrit Lal Meena, Special Secretary, Department for Promotion of Investment and Internal Trade. The Gati Shakti national master plan (NMP) announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 13, 2021, is a centralized portal, that will be enabling “institutionalizing” planning, designing, and execution among 17 different Ministries in the Centre as well as States. Including projects worth ₹100 lakh crore, the program aims to cut down logistical costs and improve supply chains. “The national masterplan will show us geographical features such as forests, water bodies, mines, religious and archaeological sites and help us plan alignment of infrastructure projects so that we can circumvent these. Earlier, projects would be planned from within the confines of offices,” added Meena. The portal at present has already been populated by 370 “layers” of data critical for infrastructure planning, comprising information about the road, rail, port and inland waterways, aviation, natural gas pipeline, water supply pipelines, telecom infrastructure, forest wildlife, eco-sensitive zones, water resources, rivers, embankments, canals, dams, tourism sites, economic zones, industrial parks. It also comprises features like soil type, seismicity, etc. Once ready, ready, all detailed project reports of infrastructure projects will have to be prepared on the portal, which will be scrutinized and appraised by a Network Planning Group (NPG) at the Centre.

State-owned Container Corporation of India Ltd (Concor) reported a 24.46 per cent rise in consolidated net profit as compared to the corresponding quarter a year ago, taking the profits from Rs 225.66 crore to Rs 276.35 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2021. The multi-modal logistics company informing the regulatory filing to the BSE said, that the total income during the October-December quarter of the current fiscal rose to Rs 1,994.18 crore, from Rs 1,842.11 crore in the year-ago period. The said quarter endured total expenses of Rs 1,632 crore, as compared to Rs 1,545.79 crore earlier. Besides providing inland transport by rail for containers, Container Corporation of India is into management of ports, air cargo complexes and establishing cold chains.

APM Terminals Pipavav, achieved the highest berth productivity of 157.6 moves per hour during ‘MOL Gateway’ vessel of Thailand-India-Pakistan (TIP) service, a part of Ocean Network Express (ONE). TIP service operates through Ports of Pipavav, Bin Qasim, Karachi, Nhava Sheva, Colombo, Port Klang, Singapore and Laem Chabang. The commodities carried by the vessel were cotton, groundnut, sea food, white goods, agri commodities, automobile spares, machinery, electronic items, PVC resin, sanitary items and PPP granules. The service connects the Indian markets of Punjab, Gujarat, New Delhi with the Far East, thereby benefiting exporters & importers from these markets. Commenting on the achievement, Jakob Friis Sørensen, MD, APM Terminals Pipavav said, “The higher berth productivity on TIP (ONE) service after MECL service is yet another testimony of our efficiency that aims to help our customers. We are proud of our competent staff and infrastructure capability that help us to manage transit cargoes in a seamless and effective way. We also believe this efficiency is what sets up apart in terms of our service to our customers.”

Railways has started “Mission Hungry for Cargo” targeting 45 per cent modal share in freight transportation from the current 27 per cent. In the past 50 years, a considerable portion of total traffic was taken away by road transport despite the Railways being the most efficient means of inland bulk transport. Market share of Indian Railways in goods transportation has reduced to only 27 per cent. The national transporter is left with coal, cement and iron ore as only a few major commodities where railways commands bulk market share. However, even for this bulk traffic, Indian Railways is now facing the threat of high capacity road trailers and coastal shipping. Cement from Gujarat to south India, transportation of coal to power plants in Tamil Nadu has started from Paradip port. Iron and steel plants have moved from rail to road due to smaller batches and timing of supply offered by road. In order to reverse the trend, the Railways has undertaken concerted efforts introducing new initiatives targeting 45 per cent modal share of railways in freight transportation from the current 27 per cent.

The recently announced Prime Minister of India’s Gati Shakti National Master Plan for Multi-Modal Connectivity is all set to revolutionise the way infrastructure and logistic development projects are planned and implemented in India. It will bridge huge differences between macro planning and micro implementation. The Northeast region of India, comprising eight states, namely Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura, share almost 12,000 kilometres of international border with Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal and Tibet, and is connected with the rest of India by a narrow chicken-neck, having a width of approximately 20 kilometres, which is popularly known as the Siliguri Corridor in West Bengal. This has primarily kept the Northeast India’s trade potentiality under-utilised, which is understood to be much more than the realisation of Rs 3,577 crores in 2019-20 and Rs 3364.4 crores in 2020-21 as per the data as provided by the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics, Government of India. As a result of this, there is a thrust on implementing a large number of Union and State Government funded infrastructure development projects in Northeast India with the purpose of improving its internal as well as external connectivity. As per the MoSPI, there are 143 ongoing projects in Northeast India, worth an original budget of Rs. 97,418 crores in the beginning of 2021.