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Indian shipping minister opens box terminal opens at Ennore

ADANI Ports and Special Economic Zone have opened their new Ennore container terminal, in competition with perennially congested Chennai, a major port 15 miles to the south.

With Indian Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari presiding over the opening ceremonies, it appears as an aggressive plan of expansion on Adani's part and the part of the growing number of private ports now operating, says IHS Media.

The capacity addition will add excess to a market that has become over-supplied from emergence of new privately-operated minor ports on the east coast.

This includes the Kattupalli port operated by Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ), which along with other port facilities in the region has driven down capacity utilisation at the publicly-owned Chennai port to around 50 per cent capacity in recent years.

The INR72.4 trillion (US$1.1 billion) container facility, the first at Ennore, is the initial phase of a 30-year concession APSEZ won in 2014, having offered a 37 per cent share of revenue as annual royalty to the landlord port in a public tender.

Ennore is sandwiched between container facilities in Chennai to the south and Kattupalli to the north.

The Adani Ennore Container Terminal features a 400-metre (1,312 feet) quay, four rail-mounted quay cranes, 12 rubber-tyre gantry cranes, and a capacity to handle 800,000 TEU annually.

A INR54.6 billion Phase II will include a quay line of 330 metres and a capacity of 600,000 TEU, taking total capacity to 1.4 million TEU per year.

At the ceremony, the minister also announced the opening of a multipurpose cargo terminal built by Chennai-based Chettinad Group and the use of radio-frequency identification technology (RFID)-enabled gate operations at Ennore.

"The RFID system will lead to reduction of time and congestion in cargo traffic and enhance the port operations," according to an official statement.