Mundra Port

The Port of Mundra is a private port and is also a special economic zone. Incorporated in 1998 as Gujarat Adani Port Limited (GAPL), the company began operating in 2001. The combined company was renamed Mundra Port and Special Economic Zone Limited.

The multi-purpose terminals contain nine berths of a total 1.8 thousand metres long with alongside depths ranging from 9 to 16.5 metres. Berth 1 is 275 metres long with alongside depth of 15.5 metres and can accommodate vessels to 75 thousand DWT. Berth 2 is 180 metres long with alongside depth of 13 metres and can accommodate vessels to 30 thousand DWT. Accommodating vessels to 60 thousand DWT, Berths 3 and 4 are each 225 metres long; Berth 3 has alongside depth of 14 metres, and Berth 4 has alongside depth of 12 metres. Berths 5 and 6 are each 250 metres long with alongside depth of 14 metres, and both can accommodate vessels to 150 thousand DWT. Berths 7 and 8 are each 175 metres long with alongside depth of 12 metres and can accommodate vessels to 40 thousand DWT. The Barge Berth is 80 metres long with alongside depth of 6 metres and capacity for vessels of 2500 DWT.

The Mundra Port offers 21 closed dockside warehouses with capacity for 1.37 lakh (137 thousand) square metres to store wheat, sugar, rice, fertilizer, raw material for fertilizer and deoiled cakes. The port offers 8.8 lakh (880 thousand) square metres of open storage for steel sheets, coils, plate, clinker, scrap, salt, coke, bentonite, and coal. An additional 26 thousand square metres of open storage is available alongside the railway. The port also offers a wheat-cleaning facility with capacity to handle 1200 metric tons per day and a rice-sorting and –grading facility that can handle 500 metric tons per day.

The Port of Mundra is planning several additions and improvements. Two thermal power plants are under construction that will produce over 8,600 megawatts. A new terminal site is proposed to be located about ten nautical miles west of the current terminals at the Port of Mundra. The terminal will eventually contain three deep-water offshore berths and two sets of stackyards for coal, iron ore, and other dry bulk cargo.

The Republic of Kazakhstan is considering to build a terminal at the Mundra Port to provide Indian goods direct access to Central Asia via the Iran-Turkmenistan-Kazakhstan railway line.[8]

In addition, the Port of Mundra's basin on the south side of Navinal Island will be developed in two phases to enhance the chorkarmas. Scheduled to be completed in 2010, Phase IIA will include breakwaters, dredging, reclamation as well as construction of a basin container terminal, two roll-on/roll-off service berths, a craft berth, and support and back-up facilities. The railway line will be expanded, and a new dedicated berth will be added for liquefied natural gas. The Port of Mundra is also upgrading its road network, adding two lanes to the existing two-lane road.

The current capacity of port to handle 2.5 m TEU's is to be expanded to 5 m TEU by 2015, making it India's second largest container port.

Mundra Port is India's first multi-product port-based special economic zone (SEZ). The company currently has an annual cargo handling capacity 338 MMT as of February 2015.

The development of Adani Port & Special Economic Zone Limited was conceptualised by the entrepreneur Mr. Gautam Adani. Mundra Port was the first one to be developed in October 1998 with just one berth. In a short span of just 12 years Mundra Port achieved 10 crore (100 million) metric tonnes of commercial cargo in a year thereby becoming India's largest commercial port. Mundra Port has registered the fastest CAGR of over 35% in the port sector across India.[2]

The Mundra Port is located in the Northern Gulf of Kutch, en route major maritime routes and connected through rail, road, air & pipelines. This makes it a preferred gateway for cargo bound westwards. The port has been designed to handle all types of cargo viz. containers, dry bulk, break bulk, liquid cargo and automobiles.

Mundra Port has a capacity to handle 338 MMT of cargo per annum – the largest amongst all operational ports in India. Mundra Port handled 11.28 crore (112.8 million) MT of cargo in the financial year 2013–14 and is the largest commercial port of India in term so volume of cargo handled.[2]

Mundra Port has not only pioneered the concept of deep draft integrated port model, but also of port based SEZ. The multi-product SEZ consisting Mundra Port and its surrounding areas is planned to be spread over 135 square kilometres (13,500 hectares). Currently, notified Multi-product SEZ is spread over an area of 6,473 Hectare, with an additional 168 Hectares notified as a Free Trade Warehousing Zone.[9]

Mundra Port Aerial View 1999 to 2011

• 1998 October – Mundra Port commences commercial operations with one berth[10]
• 2006 April – Notification issued for Special Economic Zone (SEZ) at Mundra
• 2007
  • Offer Initial Public Offer (IPO) for 40,250,000 equity shares of ₹10 each of Mudra Port and Special Economic Zone Ltd. to public and employees with price band of ₹400 – ₹440[11]
• 2010
  • Constructed a four lane 1.5 km long dedicated RoB at a cost of ₹50 crore. This is the first private four-lane RoB within port area in India capable of withstanding a load of 100 MT to smoothen and speed up cargo movement[12]
  • World's largest fully mechanised coal import terminal with 6 crore (60 million) tonnes per year capacity was put into operation[13]
• 2011
  • Terminal Three commences operations
• 2012
  • Name changed to Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited
  • Doubling of the rail connectivity between Mundra and Adipur completed. Mundra Port now has a private rail network of 117 km.
• 2014
  • Adani's Mundra Port crosses 100 MMT mark of cargo handling in a year. Mundra Port Ltd., India's largest port developer and operator is part of the Adani Group.[14]

Port View from Tug berth side

The port has a deep draft that facilitates large vessels including fully laden capsize vessels to dock alongside its berth.[15]

Mundra Port has commodity-specific storage areas. The port has 2,25,000 sq. metres of closed godowns and 3,150,000 sq. metres of open storage yards for storage of import or export cargo within the port premises. The Liquid Terminal at ASPEZ consists of 97 tanks of different sizes and attributes with a total storage capacity of 4,25,000 kilolitres for storage of various liquid commodities.

Mundra Port has also developed adequate infrastructure for evacuation of cargo keeping in mind the concept of the inverted funnel. According to the concept, the capacity of a port's evacuation infrastructure should be more that its marine infrastructure.

Mundra Port has developed commodity-specific infrastructure for handling, storage and evacuation of cargo. The Fertilizer Cargo Complex (FCC) is a fertiliser handling facility. The FCC has 2 operational lines with 44 bagging machines with a capacity to bag 660 nos. of 50-kg bags per minute and a capacity to load and evacuate 8–10 rakes per day i.e. 25,600 tonnes per day.[16]

The steel yard is a steel storage area spread over 1,20,000 sq metres and consists of equipment for handling steel cargo. The steel yard is equipped with 8 Goliath cranes and 2 mobiles cranes with vacuum lift attachments, 6 forklifts with multiple attachments to handle steel coils, slabs and plates, 1 reach stacker and 60 trailers for internal transportation.

Besides the port area there is a large land area for development. A part of this area is now notified and functional SEZ which is now largest port based Multi product SEZ of the country.[17] This SEZ is suited to service the hinterland of north and northwest India which account for two-thirds of India's GDP. The area is connected with National road, rail and pipeline network. Being spread over an area of 84 km² it includes port, container terminals, rail, airport, container freight station and storage tanks.

Mundra Port is being developed as a business location for sectors like light and heavy engineering, project cargo, auto and auto component, textiles and apparel, pharmaceuticals dyes and specialty chemical, agriproduct processing, plastic processing, timber and furniture, global trading, metal and mineral etc.[16]

It claims to have considerable distance advantage over other ports to most destinations in Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, Delhi-NCR, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

The marine infrastructure at Mundra Port consists of ten (10) berths for handling dry bulk & break bulk cargo, three (3) berths for handling liquid cargo, six (6) container berths including a Ro-Ro berth, three (3) mechanised import cargo berths and 2 single point moorings for crude oil imports. The mechanised import cargo berths can handle vessels with maximum draft of 19 metres and other berths can handle vessels with maximum draft of 17 metres. The SPM facility offers a draft of 32 metres.

The port has its own fleet of tugs and pilots. Mundra Port also owns a fleet of dredgers to carry out the capital and maintenance dredging activities and thereby ensuring that Mundra Port has the deepest draft amongst all ports in India.[18]

Mundra Port Coal Terminal is the world's biggest coal importing terminal. It can handle 4 crore (40 million) tonnes of coal annually. It was built at a cost of ₹2,000 crore (US$280 million).[19]

Mundra Port offers inland connectivity via rail track, road network, airport and cross country pipelines.

Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone Limited handles commodities including:

• Fertilizers like urea, DAP, MOP etc.
• Agri commodities like yellow peas, DOC, wheat etc.
• Liquid cargo including crude oil, POL, chemicals, edible oil etc.
• Steam coal, coking coal, containers, automobiles, steel cargo, project cargo and minerals

Mundra Port has a diverse cargo base including dry, bulk, break bulk, liquid, crude oil, project cargo, cars and containers. Mundra Port owns cargo handling equipment like mobile harbour cranes (16 nos.), grab ship unloaders (7 nos.), pay loaders, excavators and conveyor systems for handling of bulk and break-bulk cargo. Mundra Port also makes use of hired dumpers for transfer of cargo between berths and storage area.

Mundra Port has set up 9 docklines for transfer of liquid cargo from the jetty to the liquid tank farm. The container terminals at Mundra Port have a combined infrastructure consisting of 2.1 km of quay length, 18 rail mounted quay cranes, 48 rubber tyre gantry cranes and 17,400 ground slots and sands .

A committee headed by Sunita Narain of Centre for Science and Environment, was set up by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests to inspect ship-breaking facility of M/s Adani Port and SEZ Limited near Mundra West Port in Gujarat's Kutch district . The committee which submitted its report on April 18, 2013 found incontrovertible evidence of destruction of mangroves, blocking of creeks and non-compliance of other clearance conditions.[20] Subsequently, on July 29, 2013 a public hearing was held where people from four affected villages posed questions about the project and its impact on the environment.[21]

• Mundra Port Coal Terminal