The Chettinad Mangalore Coal Terminal Pvt. Ltd., located at New Mangalore Port, on Friday handled its first mechanised consignment of coal when it received bulk carrier Yangze-8 with 60,500 tonnes of coal.
NMPT chairman A.V. Ramana told The Hindu that Yangze-8 with 13.2 mt draft berthed at Berth No. 16 on Friday thus heralding complete mechanised unloading of coal. Though the berth was commissioned in June this year, there were issues related to the draft. The Dredging Corporation of India (DCI) has now made available 13.5 mts draft at the berth thus enabling handling of bulk cargo carriers, Mr. Ramana said.
The mechanised handling facility ensures transportation of imported coal through a closed conveyor belt system unlike the conventional method where open unloading used to take place resulting in dust formation. Bulk vessels were handled earlier at the berth on a trial basis and Friday's handling was the full-fledged mechanised handling, Mr. Ramana said.
Port’s Traffic Manager Y.R. Belagal said Chettinad handles coal meant for general customers while the dedicated Berth No. 15, with 14 mts draft, handles coal exclusively for Udupi Power Corporation Ltd..
The 200 mt long, 32.25 mt wide Yangze-8 bringing coal from Indonesia through GAC Shipping, discharged 25,000 tonnes at NMPT on Friday, while the balance would be discharged at the next Port of call.
Chettinad Mangalore Coal Terminal Pvt., Ltd., has created the new facility under PPP mode at a cost of ₹469.46 crore that can handle 10 million tonnes of common user coal per annum. The 325-metre-long and 25-metre-wide berth at the port has the capacity to handle vessels up to 1 lakh dead weight tonnage.
The facility has two ship unloaders with designed discharge rate of 4,000 tonnes per hour (TPH); two stacker-cum-reclaimers with 4,000 TPH for stacking and 4,000 TPH for reclaiming. Coal gets transported from the storage yard to the wagon yard in fully covered conveyor belt system where seven rakes of 59 wagons could be loaded in a day.
