Rio Tinto Pulls Plug on Mozambique Coal Venture
Rio Tinto has agreed to sell coal assets it bought through a $4 billion acquisition of Riversdale in 2011 for just $50 million to an Indian joint venture, ending its ill-fated venture in Mozambique's coal sector. The sale of Rio Tinto Coal Mozambique to International Coal Ventures Private Limited (ICVL), includes the Benga coal mine and other projects in Tete province, assets that had a value of $71 million as of March 31 in Rio's books. In 2013, Rio Tinto sacked its chief executive…
VPT Attracts Panamax Vessels
The Visakhapatnam Port Trust (VPT), which is continuing its supremacy over other ports in cargo handling, is attracting a large number of Panamax vessels after the first phase of deepening in Outer Harbour. The VPT, which was handling vessels with 195 metres LOA (length over all) and 10.21 m draft till recently, has attained the capability to handle Panamax vessels of 230 m LOA, 32.5 m beam and 0.7 m. draft with progress in completion of Inner Harbour deepening. The port is catering to Panamax vessels with 11 m draft. It will have night navigation for Suez max tankers calling at Outer Harbour shortly, once it is widened further. The VPT has undertaken work on augmenting its capacity by deepening the channels in the second half of 2005-06.