Press Trust Of India News

Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ), India’s largest private multi-port operator, reported a 41.45 percent surge in its consolidated net profit to INR 1,314.19 crore (USD 188.4million) for the quarter ended on March 31, 2019.However, its revenue fell 3.15 percent to INR 31 billion, said a stock exchange annoucement. Its coal volumes rose 30 percent year-on-year during the quarter, while the cargo volume increased 19 percent.The company also reported a record cargo throughput of 54 million metric tonnes in the three months ended March, according to the filing. Adani Ports in March had said it became the first Indian port operator to record a 200 MMT cargo movement.The Press Trust of India quoted Karan Adani…

India's state-owned Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. on Friday said it will acquire up to 50 percent stake in Adani Group-backed Gujarat State Petroleum Corp (GSPC) Mundra LNG import terminal in Gujarat for an estimated INR 756 crore (USD 118 million). According to the Press Trust of India, GSPL LNG is a joint venture of Gujarat State Petroleum Corp and Adani Enterprises. Adani and GSPC are equal partners in GSPL LNG. The board of India’s largest oil firm gave “in-principle approval for acquiring up to 50% equity in GSPL LNG Ltd, which is setting up a 5 million tons per annum LNG terminal at Mundra Port in Gujarat”, the company said in a statement. GSPL LNG Ltd will hold the remaining 50% stake in the LNG terminal that is nearing completion. IOC did not specify the deal value.

The Cochin Shipyard Limited in India delivered two RoRo vessels to the Kochi Municipal Corporation (KMC), Press Trust of India reported. The vessels with modern equipment are expected to provide a great relief to the transportation problems in Kochi, the report said quoting company officials. With a length of 27 metres and 8.25 metres breadth, the vessels can achieve speeds of six knots, it said. The vessels are provided with ramps on either side, both in the forward and aft, eliminating the need for reverse parking of the vehicles on the ferry. The diagonally placed azimuth thrusters of these vessels eliminates the need for turning of the vessels at the jetty and also allows for better manoeuvrability, especially during high tidal currents.

India's Essar Ports has won a contract to build the first liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in West Bengal  under the Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) at an investment of Rs 450 crore (USD 70 million). A Press Trust of India report said that the LNG project is expected to be commissioned in two years. The facility will come up at the Haldia port with a capacity to store one million tonne of the clean fuel. Haldia Dock Complex under Kolkata Port Trust had earlier this year invited bids for setting up an LNG terminal with storage and distribution facilities. Essar Ports, in consortium with Ultra LNG and Essar Shipping, had participated in the tender and emerged as the highest bidder for the project, beating state-owned Petronet and private operator V Energy.

The government of India is working on a policy to make India a global destination for cruise shipping and efforts are on to identify such circuits, besides a slew of steps, to boost infrastructure, Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari has said. According to a report by Press Trust of India, a high-level task force has been appointed and top global consultants are drawing up blueprint for it. Five circuits each are being identified for international and domestic cruise services and a report is likely by May this year. India, with 7,500 km of coastline, has taken steps on a war footing to promote cruise tour, which includes relaxation of policies and developing infrastructure. Mumbai has shown the way with a likely arrival of 100 cruise ships, he said.

Around 200 seafarers with Shipping Corporation of India (SCI), the country's largest shipping company, are on a hunger strike (industrial action) since Saturday over wages and arrears. According to a Press Trust of India report, these seafarers, deployed on 15 vessels owned and operated by the Centre, launched their strike demanding revised wages in accordance with the clauses of National Maritime Board Indias agreement. These seafarers have also approached the National Union of Seafarers of India (NUSI) for its intervention. "SCI was meant to have increased seafarer wages by 30% as agreed in March last year," says the Union. “The arrears haven’t been given for over a year now.

As part of its aggressive plans for port-led development, Union Shipping and Ports Minister Nitin Gadkari said he is looking to add eight major ports to the already existing 12, according to a report by Press Trust of India. "We are planning to add eight new major ports, including the three already announced - at Wadhwan in Maharashtra, Sagar in Bengal and Colachel in Tamil Nadu," he said. India currently has 12 major ports and three more are being developed, one each in Maharashtra, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. The total cost of the three upcoming ports is about Rs 25,000 crore. "We will give more details about the five planned ports over the next three days," said Gadkari. After Kandla in the 1950s, India has not built any other major port.

Sri Lanka's Minister of State for Defence Ruwan Wijewardene  visited the Goa Shipyard Limited (GSL) at the Vasco town, located around 40 kms from Panaji in India and inspected Sri Lankan ships under construction, the Press Trust of India reported. He inspected the progress of the two Advanced Offshore Patrol Vessels (AOPV) being built for Sri Lanka Navy at Goa Shipyards. Wijewardene held discussion with GSL Chairman and Managing Rear Admiral Shekhar Mital  along with the shipyard officials on the progress of the ship building process. They also visited an almost completed similar type AOPV being built for the Indian Coast Guard to see the facilities and equipment fitted on board. The first AOPV is scheduled to join the SLN fleet in August 2017 and the second one year after.

GAIL India has deferred a USD 7-billion tender for hiring nine newly-built ships to ferry liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the US by one month. Bids for the tender were to close on February 29 but now have been extended to March 31. The state gas utility is seeking 9 LNG ships of cargo capacity of 1,50,000-1,80,000 cubic metres to help transport LNG it has tied up from Sabine Pass and Cove Point LNG projects in the US, with supplies slated to start from December 2017. Press Trust of India quoted GAIL Chairman and Managing Director B C Tripathi as saying: "The postponement has been done at the request of bidders to allow them time to finalise their bids. GAIL India  is the largest state-owned natural gas processing and distribution company in India.

India is all set to launch the last of the four anti-submarine warfare (ASW) class stealth corvettes INS Kavaratti, reports Press Trust of India. Kavaratti, which is 90 percent indigenous, is the last of four ASW class stealth corvettes being built for the Indian Navy under Project 28. The other three ships of the same class are INS Kamrota, Kadmattt and Kiltan. Designed by the Directorate of Naval Design and built by Garden Reach Ship Builders and Engineers, the contract for the construction of four P28 ships was signed in June, 2012, with the project priced at Rs 7,800 crore. The corvette, with a displacement of 3,300 tonnes, has a length of 109.1 metres and measures 13.7-m at beam.

A week before Indian Prime Minister Narendara Modi is set to visit the country, China said it was ‘eager to cooperate’ with India on deep sea mining in the Indian Ocean, reports Press Trust of India. China's sweetheart deal is to break through India's resistance to its attempt to access the Indian Ocean. It is offering India an opportunity to participate in joint seabed mining in the ocean, where large deposits of gold and silver have reportedly been discovered. "With quickening oceanic development and increasing mineral exploration in the Indian Ocean, China is eager to cooperate with India on deep seabed mining," the China Daily quoted China Ocean Mineral Resource R&D Association as saying.

As part of Narendra Modi government plan to promote coastal shipping, India is all set to appoint a consultancy firm to assist the Shipping Ministry. The Press Trust of India quotes the Shipping Ministry document saying that promotion of coastal shipping and inland water transport (IWT) facilities could be enhanced through a mix of infrastructure and policy initiatives. It added that bids for appointment of a consultant have been invited and a final decision was likely soon. For a country with a coastline of 7,500 kilometres (kms), shoreline shipping plays a surprisingly small role. The share of coastal shipping in India is low when compared with Europe and other nations in Asia where it has flourished due to focused policy interventions.

India and Norway closer to one another in questions related to Polar Research and a new proposal for polar research co-operation is on the anvil, reports Press Trust of India. The Norwegian Research Council and the Ministry of Earth Sciences in India will announce a new proposal for polar research very soon, Minister Counsellor at the Norwegian Embassy in India, Sigvald T Hauge said. This will further strengthen, we believe, the long-standing polar collaboration between the two countries. Indian scientists are carrying out important researches at the 'Himadri' Arctic research station in Svalbard in Norway. President Pranab Mukherjee…

The government of India may continue to exempt vessel sharing agreements among shipping companies from the purview of fair trade watchdog CCI, reports Press Trust of India. The government felt that such pacts are unlikely to hurt competition, after the CCI and the Director General of Shipping reviewed the situation during the last exemption period. The Vessel Sharing Agreement (VSA) is a common practice in the shipping industry that allows entities to share space in each other's vessels. An official statement said that the Corporate Affairs Ministry is expected to soon issue a notification with regard to exempting VSAs from the ambit of Competition Commission of India (CCI). A one-year exemption, which was earlier provided by the government, expired in December last year.

“SMM India 2011 not only provides an international platform for leading-edge maritime technologies and innovation; it also brings together the key decision makers and stakeholders from the maritime sector, especially the shipbuilding industry,” said Mr. G.K. Vasan, Hon’ble Minister of Shipping, Government of India, in his good will message in the run-up to the second SMM India in Mumbai (the inaugural SMM India was in 2009). SMM India 2011 is organised by Hamburg Messe und Congress GmbH (HMC), teaming up with the Indian partner Inter Ads Exhibitions Pvt.

According to a Sept. 26 report from the Press Trust of India and Business Standard, engineering major Larsen and Toubro’s (L&T) shipping arm L&T Shipbuilding has earmarked around Rs 1,500 crore to develop around 800 acres of land at Kadipully near Ennore in Chennai for expanding its vessel building capacity, a top company official said. The Kadipully project, to make vessels primarily for defense, would be developed in phases and the first phase will start by mid-2011, the official said. (Source: Business Standard)

An Indian Navy patrol vessel sank off the coast of Goa after a collision with a merchant carrier, an official release said in New Delhi on Saturday. INS Prahar, a 450 ton vessel, sank just after midnight following a collision with the MV Rajiv Gandhi, a container carrier of the Shipping Corporation of India, 35 km west of Goa, it said. The collision occurred at about 21:45 hours on Friday night, the release said, adding damage to the merchant carrier was minimal and she had been anchored off the coast. Seventy-three crew members of the naval ship have been rescued. Six naval and two coast guard ships, one Dornier aircraft, two naval helicopters and merchant vessels have been deployed for search and rescue operations.