With the deck space of 71,400 square metre and carrying capacity of 8,500 car equivalent units, this just-over-a-year-old Hoegh Tracer vessel is one of the world's largest pure car and truck carrier
One of the world's largest car carriers 'Hoegh Tracer' was docked at Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) on Wednesday morning to ferry around 6,000 cars from the recently-built offshore container terminal (OCT).
During this financial year, as on January, the MbPT has already registered a 21% increase in handling of vehicles from the port.
"About 6,000 cars will be exported on this Norwegian flagged ship – Hoegh Tracer. The new OCT facility has enabled phenomenal increase of vehicle handling by our port," said Sanjay Bhatia, chairman, MbPT.
Though it is among the largest ships, it will not ferry record number of vehicles from Mumbai. On August 6, 2016, 6,312 cars were loaded on a single ship.
With the deck space of 71,400 square metre and carrying capacity of 8,500 car equivalent units, this just-over-a-year-old Hoegh Tracer vessel is one of the world's largest pure car and truck carrier (PCTC).
As per the data available with DNA Money, last year 1.40 lakh vehicles were handled by the port and, 1.70 lakh vehicles of different automobile manufacturers were handled between April 2016 and January 2017. The figure of February and March is likely to take the growth beyond 25%.
Of the 1.70 lakh vehicles handled at the port during this fiscal, over 95% of them are export units manufactured in India.
Inside the MbPT, the OCT is now being used only for roll on-roll off (Ro-Ro) services and not for other cargo, for which it was initially planned.
The OCT facility, which is 700 metre long and 58 metre wide with current draught of 10 metre and large storage area in the immediate backyard, has been getting car manufacturers like Volkswagen, Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra, General Motors, as well as biggest of the shipping lines like Hoegh Autoliners, NYK, Eukor, MOL, etc.
The Rs 1,200 crore worth OCT project, being jointly developed by Gammon Infrastructure-Dragados SPL (of Spain) is still incomplete due to want of funds. There are plans in the pipeline that may see MbPT putting the OCT project for rebidding. The existing consortium had bagged the project for a concession period of 30-years on Built-Operate-Transfer basis.
In June 2015, MbPT proposed an alternative use of the offshore container terminal for Ro-Ro operations after it wasn't possible to complete the first phase of the project. The first phase involves handling 800,000 twenty foot equivalent units (TEUs).
Presently, the facility is being utilised by importers and exporters of automobiles and self-propelled equipment. The operations through Ro-Ro took off only on July 20, 2015.
Since its inception, over 100 vessels have berthed at the privately managed terminal and MbPT is getting 55% of the revenues from the Gammon Infrastructure-Dragados SPL consortium. The OCT project is likely to go for rebidding in the next couple of months.
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