South India’s newest private container handling facility – Tuticorin International Container Terminal Pvt Ltd, a unit of J M Baxi Ports & Logistics Ltd – will begin operations on 16 September with the berthing of the Hong Kong flagged ‘Rio Grande Express’ run by German container shipping line Hapag Lloyd.
The ship will be flagged off from Tuticorin International Container Terminal by Sarbananda Sonowal, Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways on 16 September in the presence of Shantanu Thakur, Minister of State for Ports, Shipping and Waterways, T K Ramachandran, Secretary, Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways and E V Velu, Minister for Public Works (Buildings, Highways and Minor Ports), Government of Tamil Nadu.
J M Baxi Ports & Logistics has rolled out a full green initiative at Tuticorin International Container Terminal by deploying all-electric cranes and reach stackers, underscoring their commitment to sustainable and eco-friendly port operations.
The terminal is equipped with three Rail Mounted Quay Cranes (RMQCs) with a twin-lifting capacity of 65 tons, outreach of 58 meters (covering 20 rows across), nine electric Rubber Tyred Gantry Cranes (eRTGs) with 7+1 rows and 5+1 tiers, and an electric Reach Stacker (e-Reach Stacker).
Rio Grande Express, built in 2006, can carry 4,248 twenty-foot equivalent units or TEUs. It is deployed on the South East India – Europe Express (IEX) service, a fixed weekly service jointly operated by COSCO, ONE and YANG MING with nine 6,500 TEU vessels, of which four ships are from Hapag-Lloyd.
The IEX service connects the South Indian ports of Visakhapatnam, Kattupalli, and Cochin with Colombo, Damietta, Piraeus, Rotterdam, London Gateway Port, Hamburg, Antwerp and Le Havre.
Hapag-Lloyd AG owns a 40 percent stake in J M Baxi Ports & Logistics Ltd.
The Tuticorin International Container Terminal was built by converting the dry bulk cargo Berth No 9 at State-owned V O Chidambaranar Port into a container terminal (depth of 14.2 metres) with an investment of Rs 434.17 crore as part of the government’s privatisation program.
The new terminal will boost V O Chidambaram Port’s container handling capacity by 6 lakh twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) a year to 1.8 million TEUs a year.
Tuticorin International Container Terminal had emerged the successful bidder for the project by placing the highest royalty price bid of Rs 1,900.44 per TEU in a public auction.
V O Chidambaram Port currently has two container terminals in its inner harbour, run separately by PSA SICAL Terminals Ltd (draft of 11.7 metres) and Dakshin Bharat Gateway Terminal Pvt Ltd (draft of 14.2 metres) with a capacity to handle a combined 1.2 million TEUs.
Between April and August 2024, the two container terminals at V O Chidambaranar Port handled a combined 3,36, 000 TEUs from 3,15,000 TEUs a year earlier.
