Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd (APSEZ), a part of the diversified conglomerate Adani Group, handled 32 MMT of total cargo in March 2023, clocking growth of 9.5 per cent year-on-year (YoY), according to a company press release. Adani Ports has been continuously increasing its market share for the past years, outperforming all of India’s cargo volume growth, the release said.
For the first time since July 2022, the volumes crossed the 30-MMT mark. With 339 MMT in FY23 (April 2022 – March 2023), APSEZ recorded its largest port cargo volumes ever, which is a good 9 per cent YoY growth.
Karan Adani, CEO and whole-time director, APSEZ, said, “The improvement in cargo volumes is testimony to the faith that our customers have in us.” He said, “It shows our commitment to using improved efficiencies and technological integrations to drive and achieve customer satisfaction. The APSEZ’s flagship port, Mundra, is outpacing all its closest rivals and continues to be the largest port in the nation in terms of volumes handled. Mundra’s infrastructure meets world standards and provides service levels on par with those of its global competitors, making it India’s gateway for container goods.”
APSEZ’s handling in overall container volumes in India surged to 8.6 MTUs (+5 per cent YoY), including 6.6 MTEUs at Mundra alone. It continues to be India’s largest seaport with 155 MMT of total cargo handled during the year.
The company’s logistics business segment also had a record year. The container rakes handled during the year achieved a new milestone crossing 500,000 TEUs (+ 24 per cent YoY), while the bulk cargo transported exceeded 14 MMT, implying 62 per cent YoY rise.
This financial year saw APSEZ setting some new milestones on the count of ships docked (6,573), rakes serviced (40,482), and the trucks, trailers, and tankers handled (48,89,941). Adani Ports serviced 3,068 unique customers across its different business units.
The capability to maintain deep draft ports enables APSEZ’s customers bring larger vessel parcels, thereby lowering their overall logistics cost. The lower logistics costs allow businesses to export goods, boosting domestic economy and raising the employment rate in the process. Mundra handled the deepest container vessel – MSC Washington with an arrival draft of 17.0 meters – ever handled by any Indian port, and the largest vessel, MSC Fatma, with a vessel length of 366 m and carrying capacity of 15,194 TEUs. The port also docked its first LNG-fuelled vessel, Aframax Crude Oil Tanker, at its SPM facility. The draft is 14 meters long with a total displacement of 1,26,810 MT.
The release pointed out among India’s ports that can handle cape-size vessels with deeper drafts, Krishnapatnam Port has the highest departure draft recorded in Indian maritime history. A fully loaded cape-size vessel, MV NS Hairun, with a maximum draft of 17.85 meters sailed out from the port with 168,100 MT of iron ore. It received the largest parcel size of gypsum MV SHINYO GUARDIAN with 163,781 MT.
Busy traffic was witnessed at other ports as well with Dahej receiving MV STAR OPHELIA carrying 1.24 lakh MT of gypsum cargo, Kattupalli handling the largest dry bulk parcel size vessel, MS Tristar Dugon, with a 76,250 MT discharge of gypsum, and Hazira getting the largest over dimensional cargo (OCD) with a volume of 45752 cubic meters.
While Hazira reported the highest ever sugar cargo volume of 1.15 MMT as compared to its previous best of 0.95 MMT, Krishnapatnam recorded an all- time high gypsum discharge of 1.17 MMT. Gangavaram dispatched the highest amount of alumina bulkers on a single day whereas Dhamra exported 1,57,000 MT of iron ore on MV Mojo, which sailed out with a deep draft of 17 meters, and Kattupalli posted a 58 per cent rise in container volume.