In the pre-bidding conference held at the Paradip Port, five companies, including steel maker Hyundai Steel from South Korea, have expressed their willingness to construct an iron ore terminal at Paradip.
The others include the Jindal Steel and Power limited (JSPl) belonging to Congress MP Naveen Jindal, Essar Steel ltd belonging to Ruia Brothers, Central PSU National Buildings Constructions Conference ltd and Elicon Engineering of Pune. The Paradip Port Trust (PPT) has floated a fresh global tender on BOT (Build, Operate and Transfer) for building an iron ore
terminal, as the original winner of the contract Blue Water Iron Ore Terminal Pvt ltd could not initiate work for the cargo handling facility since 2009. The proposed terminal will be a deep draught meant for loading of iron ore. The tender document did not specify the capacity of the terminal, but in its earlier proposal, the bidder had submitted plans for a terminal with 10 million metric tonne a year capacity.
Currently, the PPT has a 10 million metric tonne a year iron ore cargo berth which is already more than 40 years’ old. The cost of the iron ore terminal was earlier fixed at Rs 507 crore. But in the recent tender document, the port revised the expenditure to be incurred in building the terminal to Rs 592 crore. Earlier, the concession agreement for the terminal between PPT and Blue Water Iron Ore Terminal Pvt ltd, a special purpose vehicle floated by Hong Kong-based Noble Group in partnership with Gammon Infrastructure Projects and MMTC, was signed during the tenure of former Chairman of PPT K Raghuramaiah.
However, problems in getting environment and forest clearances delayed the project construction work and court cases over relocation of iron ore plots within port area created further uncertainties. However, the new tender floated has raised a flicker of hope for augmenting the productivity of the port.