WASHINGTON: Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta Ltd on Friday received the ‘letter of award’ for development of two berths and barge berths at Port of Mormugao, Goa, on the ‘design, build, finance, operate and transfer’ basis.
It was handed over to Vedanta’s iron ore business chief executive officer, Kishore Kumar, by Mormugao Port Trust Chairman I Jeyakumar in the presence of Road, Transport, Highways and Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari at the Summit. “Vedanta must use this opportunity to upgrade the Mormugao Port and invest in inland waterways so that it can be used for trade extensively,” said Gadkari.
The redevelopment of the Mormugao port is essential for Goa as modernisation and improvement of the port will bring a cascading of larger vessels giving it the necessary impetus for enhancing and stimulating growth of maritime traffic, enhanced efficiency and create sustainable ports infrastructure. It augurs well for Vedanta which is a diversified natural resources company with its operations close to ports and has the domain expertise to address the challenges in the maritime industry for the beneficiation of resources.
Vedanta is the largest exporter of iron ore from Goa and this project would provide logistic integration to our iron ore business apart from handling other cargo. The ramp up of the Goan iron ore industry beyond 20 million tons through this port will be a significant gateway for the mining industry in the state giving them the added advantage of end to end scale of operations in terms of cargo movement and consolidation.
The project will be handled by Sterlite Ports Limited a wholly owned subsidiary of Vedanta Limited. Vedanta, through one of its subsidiary, currently owns and operates a 14 MMTPA capacity fully mechanized coal terminal in Visakhapatnam Port, Andhra Pradesh.
The project has been awarded through a competitive bidding process on DBFOT Basis for the 19 MMTPA capacity multi-cargo Port terminal in Mormugao Port, Goa. The re-developed berths are planned to handle all type of cargo including iron ore, coal, limestone, bauxite and general cargo with an expected capacity of 19.22 million tonnes per annum. With this Vedanta’s Sterlite Ports will have a strategic presence on both west and east coasts in the traditional iron ore and coal hubs respectively.
