JNPT puts Rs. 2,500-cr liquid cargo terminal on hold.

The Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) has decided to put on hold the Rs. 2,500-crore liquid cargo terminal, barely two months after it short-listed five bidders in a global tender to award the project.

JNPT Chairman NN Kumar said the port trust has decided to go for a review of the project following concerns that demand for liquid cargo handling capacity will be much lower than the projected traffic volume.

The project was designed to have a capacity to handle 15 million tonnes (mt) a year. 'We may scale down the capacity to 7.5 mt and instead of four berths, we may go for two,' he said.

In September, the port had short listed six parties -including Adanis, Shapoorji Pallonji Group and United Liner Agencies for setting up the project on public private partnership (PPP) basis.

The plan was to award the contract by second half of next year.

JN Port, the country's premier container port, also handles liquid cargo - 5.5 mt a year at a terminal operated jointly by oil companies BPCL and IOC.

As part of the expansion plans, the port wants to build a large liquid cargo terminal, to take up the capacity to 20.5 mt by 2018.


HBL