Dubai: Ras Al Khaimah's Saqr Port Authority has emerged one of the leading bidders to develop and operate coal and iron ore berths at India's state-owned Paradip Port in Orissa, according to the port's management.
A partnership between Saqr Port and Emirates Trading Agency (ETA) is among the eight shortlisted bidders, which include China's state-owned Ningbo Port Group.
"The Ningbo consortium and Saqr-ETA are among eight entities shortlisted for each of the two projects," said K. Raghuramaiah, chairman, Paradip Port was quoted in the Indian press on Saturday.
Ningbo has teamed up with Hong Kong-based Great Harvest (Holdings) and India's Monnet Ispat.
Paradip Port is expected to invite price bids from the shortlisted bidders later this month. The bidder willing to share the highest percentage of its annual gross revenues with the government-owned port will win the deal to develop and operate the berths.
The central government-owned Paradip Port plans to build a Rs3.87 billion berth with a capacity of 10-million tonnes to handle imported coking coal used for firing steel plants, and another 10 million tonne berth worth Rs5 billion to handle iron ore exported from India.
When fully operational, the two berths will have deep draughts (depth) of 16 metres capable of handling ships with an initial cargo carrying capacity of 125,000 tonnes that will later be upgraded to 185,000 tonnes.
Paradip is India's second busiest iron ore handling port after the Mormugao Port in Goa.
India exported 93.79 million tonnes of iron ore in the 12 months through March 2007 of which Paradip handled 11.94 million tonnes.
Out of the total exports, 80.16 million tonnes was sold to Chinese buyers. Paradip also handles 10 million tonnes a year of local coal shipped through the port to other parts of India.
