Monday, October 17, 2011

Kattupalli International Container Terminal - A terminal operated by ICTSI





The Kattupalli Shipyard cum Captive Port Complex is a mega shipyard project at Kattupalli village near Ennore of Chennai being built by L&T Shipbuilding Ltd. LTSB is a joint venture between L&T and Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO), formed to implement the integrated shipyard-cum-port project.

The container terminal will be operated and managed by the Philippines-based port operator, International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI) for a 28 – year period.. This is their first project in India. Manila-based ICTSI is a port manager involved in operations and development of 23 marine terminals and port projects in 17 countries.
 
 The first development phase is expected to be operational by January 2012 . A CFS is also planned as part of the service package. Access to the terminal on the marine side is via a 3.5 km long channel and port basin offering a draft of 14 m. Kattupalli’s North and South breakwaters (total 3.35 km) ensure a safe harbour and uninterrupted terminal operations. 

The terminal will be well connected by road, upgrading the existing TPP Road expected to complete by the end of this year and the Chennai Bypass road, which connects with NH5 and NH4 (from Bangalore) has also been completed. Also, LTSB is likely to form a joint venture with Ennore port and TIDCO, to build a 25.5km road to connect Ennore and Kattupalli ports.

In terms of cargo generation, the KICT is located in close proximity to the majority of Container Freight Stations in Chennai and is eyeing a potential traffic of 2.5-3 million TEUs  a year . Also the proposed Ennore special economic zone , adjacent to the terminal, is another expected source of business.

 L&T is also planning a shipyard in the facility , which will be competing with Japanese and Korean shipyards in building "specialized ships" such as large-size warships, car carriers, submarines, naval offshore patrol vessels, fast patrol vessels and corvette. After Colombo and Singapore, Kattupalli will be the third major international destinations for ship repairs in the region.


Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Effect of Cabotage policy on coastal shipping.

 
India is emerging as a modern economy and about 95% of India’s EXIM  cargo trade by volume and 70% by value is transported by sea.  At present India’s foreign trade represents less than 3% of global trade and the National Maritime Agenda  set a target of 5% of global market share by the year 2020.  Coastal shipping has a significant role to play in Indian economy to achieve this ambitious target.

Despite of having a rich and proud  Maritime tradition and a long coastline of about 7517km studded with 13 major and 185 Non-Major (Minor / Intermediate)  ports , the potential of coastal shipping has not yet been fully exploited in India.

Cabotage policy has an important bearing on the coastal shipping of a country. Most of the maritime nations like USA, China , Indonesia etc  practice an absolute Cabotage  and it restricts movement of coastal cargo by their own flag vessels . 

By definition , coastal vessel means a vessel of Indian registry with exclusive Indian crew, engaged in carriage by sea of cargo or passengers, from one Indian port to another port or place in India , and/or any other vessel having specified period license for coastal trade issued by Director General of Shipping.

In India the Cabotage, which is provisioned in section 406 & 407 part XIV of Merchant Shipping Act,1958, is not absolute . According to this law, only Indian flag vessels can carry cargo from one Indian port to  another Indian port , however , permission is granted to foreign flag vessels to ply between Indian ports , incase Indian flag ships are not available.

The Indian National Ship Owners’ Association (INSA) consider the absence of absolute cabotage is the major reason for low investments in coastal shipping and  strongly oppose the move of relaxing the  cabotage law arguing that this will not give a level playing ground for Indian bottoms.

On checking the past records of coastal trade , it is evident that the present cabotage policy did not boost coastal trade to the desired levels. The % of coastal shipping in India is only 7% against 43% in Europe.

Coastal Shipping- Present Status

Economic reforms in India have triggered a high rate of economic growth in the country and this in turn has led to an increase in transport demand.  This demand is being met mainly by the rail and road transport systems.  About 50-55% of the freight traffic is carried by road , 30-35% is by rail and only about 7% by coastal shipping .


Though coastal vessel number and tonnage increased from 244 / .60mgt in 2001 to 682/1.0 mgt in 2010, actual number of cargo carrying fleet is very small. The major percentage of fleet is comprises of passenger – cum – cargo vessels, passenger vessels, dredgers etc. And the average age of the coastal fleet is much higher compared to that of overseas fleet with over 60% of its tonnage already overdue for replacement.
  According to Alphaliner report given below , the world liner fleet has crossed 15 million TEUs now .

 
Whereas only 16 Indian container vessels as listed below  with  about 2200TEUs capacity  only available for coastal run at present. (Source :- (Draft )Report of Sub-Group No.VI on Infrastructure to Support Coastal Shipping, Cruise Shipping and Development of Ship Repair, page.11)


 Sufficient Ro-Ro or Lo-Lo services , which can carry trucks from one port to another to reduce the cost of double handling, are not available in India at present . Introduction of such high tech vessel  will make coastal shipping more attractive. As Indian shipping is not in a position to bring in such new technologies at present due to various reasons, foreign shipping should be permitted to operate.

Coastal Traffic – An overview

The commodities carried by coastal shipping are mainly bulk and break bulk cargo. The passage of cargo to both directions are not equal in coastal shipping and this leads to imbalance. This is because the cargo movement pattern and magnitude is mostly dependent on the production/availability, consumption/demand and the distance separating production centre from points of destination.

The commodity wise split  of costal cargo for 2005-06 and  2009-10 are  as under. Though the POL products has the highest share , it is to be noted that the share of liquid /dry bulk cargo has reduced from 94%(2005-06) to 87 % in 2009-10.  And there has been an increase of 7% in the share of “Others” (food grains, automotive spares, automobiles, steel, cotton yarn, other containerized cargo etc) due to increase in containerized cargo movement.

 
Previous studies and surveys reveal that , foreign shipping is more cost effective and technically advanced compared to coastal shipping. This is another reason why foreign ships  to be permitted to carry Indian coastal cargo, this policy change can do wonders in reducing logistics costs and enhancing efficiencies. Also would boost multimodal transportation trade , a business of huge potential waiting to be tapped  in India.

 Containerization – Driving force for coastal shipping.

 Containerization density in India is lower (18%), compared to the world average, though rising containerization is one of the key trends expected to drive coastal shipping. Positive upward trend in containerization is evident in the below given  chart, an increase of 3.2% from FY04 (14.8%) to FY10(18%).
   

The commissioning and successful implementation of India’s first International Container Transhipment Terminal at Vallarpadam, Cochin and the proposed Vizhinjam International Transhipment Terminal are  expected to catalyze  the growth of coastal shipping further as container volumes are projected to flow to/from  all the ports more rapidly than before.  Presently about 70% of the Indian containerized cargo is getting transshipped at Colombo, Dubai, Singapore and Salalah.  The dependents on foreign transshipment ports make the import and export of a country   expensive and less competitive in the international market.

The cabotage restriction has an adverse effect on the growth of India’s first and only transhipment terminal, ICTT-Vallarpadam, which is in its infancy. This is a classic example of the necessity of relaxing the existing Cabotage restrictions for the promotion of shipping trade in general and coastal shipping in particular.  It is estimated that about 1.2 million Indian cargo, mainly from South Indian ports ,  is getting transshipped at Colombo and If these containers are transshipped at  ICTT there would be substantial savings in the cost as well as transit time . For the success of a  hub port, good connectivity ( sea/river, rail ,road  )is required  to pool cargo from other Indian ports/ overseas and to deliver the cargo to final destinations. From Colombo shipping lines are free to feeder in/out container to any Indian ports without any difficulty and this increases the acceptance of Colombo as a preferred hub port.  

The cargo carrying capacity of ships,   is several times greater than that of rail wagons or  trucks  and therefore, coastal shipping offers the benefit of low transport / operating & logistics costs to the trade and industry.  

The Department-Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism & Culture in their 170th Report on Modernization of Major Ports presented to the Rajya Sabha on 11.8.2011 says this on cabotage: “346. In view of the critical implication of this regulation in the successful implementation of the ICTT project and in the larger interest of economic self-reliance of the Indian EXIM trade, it is imperative that the Cabotage Law is relaxed to enable transshipment of containers through foreign flag vessels from ICTT, Cochin. The Committee, therefore, recommends that the Government should immediately undertake a review of the Cabotage law and take appropriate decision in consultation with all the stakeholders involved”.

Also ,The Director General, Shipping himself recommend in the draft of the Coastal Shipping Policy, “a nuanced approach towards transshipment cargo would require opening it up foreign flag so as to boost containerization and the requisite infrastructure and practices”.

According to INSA this move will adversely affect the growth of Indian coastal shipping. They also argue that the foreign liners have only short term interest and the Indian shipping companies are equipped enough to cater to the expected increase in demand for more feeders . .   However , it is difficult to foresee the acquisition of sufficient container ships by Indian companies . Though it is argued that the relaxation would hurt the growth of Indian tonnage, in long run ,by creating demand for the coastal shipping, it would be beneficial.  

Key Advantages of coastal shipping.

It is estimated that the nation would save Rs. 15-20 billion through diversion of 5% of cargo from road apart from a reduction in pollutants by 6%  and savings in fuel . India’s transportation sector relies heavily on petroleum as its chief energy source, thereby dominating the country’s oil consumption. 

Indian marine  highways are a vital national resource currently not being used and India should develop a  vibrant system of sea highways connecting a network of  major/minor ports and the Inland water Transport system which would complement the land bound network .A well developed coastal shipping will substantially help to reduce road accidents, fuel conception and will prove to be an environmental friendly mode of transport.  

Also, various studies in India and abroad prove that Coastal shipping can reduce green house gas emission considerably. This makes all the more important that India should look closely at the potential of the coastal shipping transport systems to ease the pressure on surface transport modes and arrest the continuous damage caused to environment.  

India should reduce the stress on road and rail and also on environment by diverting a sizable  percentage of  cargo moved by rail and road to coastal shipping. A relatively modest investment in coastal sea routes with appropriate policy changes, would bring substantial benefits by  reducing burden on present transportation system, traffic congestion and pollution

Saturday, April 30, 2011

CONTAINER TERMINAL

Containers are the foundation for a 'unit load' concept and they came into the market in the 50’s for the safe transportation of commodities. There has been a significant spurt in worldwide container transportation in the current decade and this inturn resulted in development of seaport container terminals across the globe. Today the competition among the terminals are remarkably high and all of them are gearing up to meet the challenges of handling mega vessels upto 10,000 to 12,000 TEUs capacity and beyond.


What is in a terminal ?

1.  The Quay ( is a structure on the shore where ships can dock to load &
                      unload cargo. And this structure can have 1 or more berths (mooring
                      locations)
2. Yard ( Space to store the containers to be loaded / discharged on to/ from
              the ship)
3. Equipments ( both the quay side and yard equipments)
4. Labour ( the admin & field work force).

In other words a typical container terminal consist of a land area with good infrastructures ( road/gate/lights etc) and superstructures (gantry cranes/ yard equipments etc) to carry out the quayside and the yard operations.


Yard management

Terminal Equipments
Gantry Crane & Straddle Carrier
Selection of a container terminal
Below given are some vital elements which are considered by the shipping lines while selecting a container terminal to call their ships
- Geographical Location (Hub or not)
- Strategical Position ( Required deviations from international maritime
  routes)
- Economical conditions ( Size of the commercial market, costs, tariffs etc)
- Physical Elements ( Draft, Berth length , access to sea, stack capacity, no.of   
  gantry cranes, CFS etc)
- Political Environment ( labour unions, strikes, work timings, quality of work
   force)
- Environmental Conditions ( Monsoons/ Winter)
- Intermodal facilities (Rail / Road / Water connectivity)

Why is a ship called "SHE" ?