India's Cochin Port Authority announced plans to extend concessions on vessel-related charges granted at an earlier time to mainline vessels.
Buoyed by a surge in container movements in recent months, the extention is for an additional period of six months ending March 2011.
Originally introduced in September 2006, the concessional scheme offers a 50 percent rebate in port service charges applied to mainline vessels connecting key ports in the U.S., Europe, Africa, Australia and China.
CPA said the port handled 43 mainline calls from April through September, contributing traffic volume of about 35,000 20-foot equivalent units compared with 25 calls and around 22,000 TEUs in the year-ago period.
Cochin, one of India’s 13 major publicly-owned ports, is building a state-of-the-art container transshipment terminal capable of handling 8,000-TEU ships under a public-private-partnership development
contract with DP World. The $500-milion terminal, on a 38-year concession, is scheduled to open shortly with the port nearing completion of a dredging project to lower the depth of its approach channel to 14.5 meters.
Frequent labor unrest coupled with chronic infrastructure constraints seriously damaged Cochin’s reputation internationally, prompting mainline operators to omit calls at the southeastern hub, and the
authority is hoping that the modern private facility with stricter operating discipline will help turnaround its container business substantially.
Cochin handled 290,000 TEUs in fiscal 2009-10 ended March 31, up from 261,000 TEUs the previous year. Throughput for the April-October period increased to 197,000 TEUs from 174,000 TEUs on a year-on-year basis.
Meanwhile, DP World India reportedly served a notice to CPA demanding compensation for berthing delays suffered by the Chinese vessel Zenhua-10 that brought four ship-to-shore gantry cranes for its new terminal. The vessel was forced to wait at the outer anchorage for nearly 45 days because of insufficient channel depth, incurring additional charter hire costs.
Buoyed by a surge in container movements in recent months, the extention is for an additional period of six months ending March 2011.
Originally introduced in September 2006, the concessional scheme offers a 50 percent rebate in port service charges applied to mainline vessels connecting key ports in the U.S., Europe, Africa, Australia and China.
CPA said the port handled 43 mainline calls from April through September, contributing traffic volume of about 35,000 20-foot equivalent units compared with 25 calls and around 22,000 TEUs in the year-ago period.
Cochin, one of India’s 13 major publicly-owned ports, is building a state-of-the-art container transshipment terminal capable of handling 8,000-TEU ships under a public-private-partnership development
contract with DP World. The $500-milion terminal, on a 38-year concession, is scheduled to open shortly with the port nearing completion of a dredging project to lower the depth of its approach channel to 14.5 meters.
Frequent labor unrest coupled with chronic infrastructure constraints seriously damaged Cochin’s reputation internationally, prompting mainline operators to omit calls at the southeastern hub, and the
authority is hoping that the modern private facility with stricter operating discipline will help turnaround its container business substantially.
Cochin handled 290,000 TEUs in fiscal 2009-10 ended March 31, up from 261,000 TEUs the previous year. Throughput for the April-October period increased to 197,000 TEUs from 174,000 TEUs on a year-on-year basis.
Meanwhile, DP World India reportedly served a notice to CPA demanding compensation for berthing delays suffered by the Chinese vessel Zenhua-10 that brought four ship-to-shore gantry cranes for its new terminal. The vessel was forced to wait at the outer anchorage for nearly 45 days because of insufficient channel depth, incurring additional charter hire costs.