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VPT's ore handling complex posts growth in productivity

Our Bureau

VISAKHAPATNAM, March 30

THE nearly 25-year-old ore handling complex (OHC) at the Vizag port, which, in the past, has been a constant source of worry for all those involved in iron ore exports from the port, has registered a significant improvement in productivity in the current fiscal, resulting in substantial savings in foreign exchange.

The OHC, which is the key infrastructure for iron ore exports from the Vizag port, constituting 50 per cent of the port's total exports and 20 per cent of its total throughput, has shown a 60 per cent improvement in productivity in the current fiscal. `` This has resulted in saving of demurrages worth Rs. 6.7 crores in foreign exchange,'' a senior port official handling the OHC operations told Business Line.

The OHC, constructed in 1976 to accommodate bulk carriers up to 1.50 lakh dwt, consists of three wagon tipplers, receiving conveyor, bucket wheel reclaimer and a shiploader. Iron ore is brought from Bailadilla mines in Madhya Pradesh in wagons, tippled a nd stacked at the port stackyard and exported primarily to Japan, Korea and China.

With the infrastructure having become old, the port was confronted with frequent mechanical problems, resulting in agonising delays in loading and concomitantly high incidence of demurrages.

In the current fiscal, the port received 39 vessels of ore for export, apart from 28 vessels for Essar's Hazira plant and two for Ispat Industries. Out of the 39 vessels that exported the ore, 15 vessels earned despatch money (for completing the vessels ahead of the schedule) and 11 sailed under no-despatch-no-demurrage account.

The port could thus earn a despatch amount of $22,765 in the current fiscal, against $4,738 earned during 1998-99. Thanks to this, the net demurrage incurred in the current fiscal was $97,165, as against a whopping $16.45 lakhs incurred during 1998-99.

``This means that the incidence of demurrage per tonne came down from $0.434 (Rs. 18.66) in 1998-99 to $0.025 (Rs. 1.07) in the current fiscal. Then again, out of this demurrage per tonne of Rs. 1.07, nearly six paise was on account of mechanical repairs of OHC,'' the official pointed out.

Bestowing significant attention on OHC's performance, the Vizag port could increase the average loading rate from 29,000 tonnes per day in 1998-99 to 47,000 tonnes in the current fiscal.

``In fact, on majority of days, a loading rate of 60,000 tonnes per day was achieved, exceeding the norm of 50,000 tonnes per day fixed by the Ministry of Surface Transport. And on certain days, it touched an impossible 70,000 tonnes. The average pre-ber thing detention was also reduced from 2.75 days in 1998-99 to 0.68 days in the current year,'' the official said.

This was possible, the official pointed out, after the port management applied stringent productivity norms and effected a day-to-day monitoring of the operations. The other steps included procurement of two high-power 120-tonne gear boxes for the twin t ipplers in the OHC, one set of bogie wheel assembly and replacement of third wagon tippler rail beam.