Sical to set up a Rs 550 crore iron ore plant at Ennore

Mumbai, July 10 (UNI) Ennore Port has chosen a Sical Logistics-led consortium to build a Rs 5.5 billion iron ore terminal at the port near Chennai.

Announcing this to BSE, a Sical Logistics said the iron ore terminal will be developed on a build-operate-transfer (BOT) contract for 30 years including the construction period, likely to start in FY09.

The terminal will have a capacity of 12 million tonnes of cargo per year, expandable to 15 or 20 million tonnes per year and would avail facilities such as jetty, ship loader, mechanised handling system with conveyor, storage and wagon unloading system.

The project, to be implemented on a revenue sharing basis with Ennore Port, is expected to generate nearly Rs two billion in annual revenue.

Initially, the terminal will handle Panamax and Cape size vessels of up to 150,000 discrete wavelet transform (DWT), while after dredging, the terminal would be able to handle vessels of 225,000 DWT.

Other features include the capability of an average 75,000-tonnes-per day ship loading rate; a stockpile area that can store 1.2 million tonnes of iron ore and a railway wagon unloading system that can handle up to twelve 3,500-tonne rakes per day.

Vice Chairman of Sical Logistics Ashwin Muthiah said that the Ennore terminal would boost iron ore movement in southern India.

Sical Logistics, formerly South India Corporation (Agencies), is involved in multi-modal logistics for cargo-port terminals, port handling, trucking and warehousing, ship agency, container freight stations, customs agency and offshore supply logistics.

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