VOTL of Essar Ports is the best performing marine terminal in Kandla Port Trust
The marine terminal of Vadinar Oil Terminal Ltd (VOTL), which is part of Essar Ports Ltd, has been the best performing terminal in the Kandla Port Trust (KPT) for two consecutive years. The terminal recently received a certificate of appreciation from KPT, which crossed 100 million tonnes of cargo throughput for the first time in FY 2015-16, the company said in its press release.
VOTL is an integrated oil terminal located in Vadinar, Gujarat with 58 million tonnes capacity and handles crude oil and petroleum products. The facilities consist of an offshore SPM (Single Point Mooring), two jetties, 3.12 Million KL tankages for storage, and rail and road gantries for dispatch of petroleum products. VOTL is a double five star rated terminal by British Safety Council and winner of Sword of Honour – one of the highest accolades in relation to health & safety highlighting its state of the art operations and facilities.
In FY 2015-16, the marine terminal had a throughput of 27.8 million tonnes, and handled 330 vessels, with an average turnaround time of just 1.95 days. The only other terminal operator that came close was Indian Oil, which recorded a throughput of 24.6 million tonnes. VOTL’s marine terminal receives almost 85% of the crude requirement of Essar Oil’s 20 million tonne refinery in Vadinar. At the same time, over 65% of the petro products produced in the refinery are exported from the terminal.
FY 2015-16 was a productive year for VOTL as a whole with the company recording an overall throughput—which includes cargo handled both by the marine terminal as well as road and rail gantries—of 38.42 million tonnes.
About Essar Ports
Essar Ports is one of the largest port companies of India, with a current capacity of 140 million tonnes. The capacity is being expanded to 194 million tonnes over the next few years. Essar Ports has five operational port terminals at Hazira, Vadinar, Paradip, Salaya and Vizag Iron Ore and is estimated to handle approximately 90 million tonnes of cargo during FY17.
The Hazira port is an all-weather, deep-draft port with 30 million tonnes of dry bulk and break bulk cargo handling capacity. Vadinar is also an all-weather, deep-draft port with 58 million tonnes of liquid cargo handling capacity. The Paradip dry bulk terminal was commissioned in December 2012 and is an all-weather, deep-draft port with 16 million tonnes of dry bulk cargo handling capacity. The Vizag terminal is an operational berth taken over in May 2015 having capacity of 16 million tonnes. The Company’s newly commissioned dry bulk terminal at Salaya has increased its capacity by further 20 million tonnes
Additionally, the Company is also expanding its Hazira port capacity by 20 million tonnes – taking Hazira capacity to 50 million tonnes. The Company is also undertaking capacity addition of iron ore berths at Visakhapatnam Port with a total capacity of 16 million tonnes. The Company also plans to develop a coal terminal at Paradip of 18 million tonnes capacity.
