The service is due to start
in early March, initially offering two or three sailings a week and as volumes
build, it will be enhanced to a weekly frequency, according to industry
sources.
Paradip has traditionally
thrived on bulk cargo activity, with throughput volumes for fiscal year 2022-23
hitting an all-time high of 116.13 million tonnes, up 16.5% year-over-year.
To incentivize containerised trade, the local Odisha state authority has
agreed to compensate the carrier for commercial losses resulting from
insufficient head-haul cargo lifts based on a minimum volume of 250 TEUs per
call. The move is seen as a boon
for exporters/importers in India’s eastern region, who have traditionally used
Kolkata Port or Visakhapatnam Port for transhipment movements, mostly via
Colombo.
MSC has significantly
expanded its ocean network out of India in recent years, as the economy
expands. The carrier also has terminal interests at several port
locations in India as part of its growth strategies in the booming economy. MSC’s subsidiary Terminal Investments
Limited (TiL) operates a container terminal at Mundra Port in partnership with
the Adani Group.
Additionally, the container
transport giant recently acquired a 49% stake in Adani’s container terminal
project at Ennore Port, near Chennai.
As trade expands, Paradip
has significant capacity expansion plans in the works. The port aims to
scale up throughput levels to over 300 million tonnes over the next three years
with the commissioning of a new general terminal project in the final stages of
development.
From April through January,
the first 10 months of fiscal year 2023-24, Paradip has handled some 120
million tonnes of cargo, registering a 10% increase, according to the latest
data. Sensing an opportunity to pick up additional volumes, PSA Mumbai or
Bharat Mumbai Container Terminals (BMCT) at Nhava Sheva Port recently
established a new rail link with Odisha,
involving a 1,600-kilometer journey.
“Under this collaboration,
we anticipate about four trains per month to be delivered,” PSA Mumbai noted in
a customer advisory. The company went on
to add, “This partnership represents one of the longest-distance inland
connections for PSA Mumbai.”