Coal producers see gold in India's rapidly growing ports

The speed with which large, private, fully mechanised ports are springing up in India is making coal producers and traders think again.

Suppliers had until recently doubted that India could import the coal it will need because most of its ports were small and shallow, and government port expansions were running late.

The international perception of India's coal ports has been of a collection of mostly small, old terminals which cannot take standard coal 150,000 tonne capesize vessels but are mostly limited to 50,000-75,000 tonne panamaxes or handysizes.

These small ports can take up to a week to discharge, are plagued by delays, and have poor road and rail links to end-users.

But the slew of private ports under construction or expansion and their sheer size has taken the international coal market by surprise.

"We're going to have to revise our projections for Indian coal imports and look at the impact of the ports being built," said John Kearsey, head of research at ship brokers Simon Spence & Young.

India will need more imported coal to make up for its domestic shortfall for the next 20 years. In 2010-2011, India will import 81 million tonnes.

"Indian and Chinese coal demand is a significant driver behind our forecast for dry bulk demand growth over the next few years," said Will Fray, shipping analyst with London-based consultants Maritime Strategies International (MSI). "Together we expect them to account for over 50% of global incremental seaborne coal imports over this period."

"India is fully geared up to handle its coal import requirements by 2012," said a spokesperson for the Adani Group, India's largest coal importers.

"Adani Group itself will have fully mechanised capacity to handle close to 90 million tonnes of coal at various ports, including its Mundra terminal, which will take 60 million tonnes alone," the spokesperson said.

"Wow, if that's how much they are gearing up for imports we have to look at that market," a European utility source said.

Krishnapatnam Port in Andhra Pradesh is one of the new state-of-the-art cape ports and will be able to take in more coal than South Africa's total 2009 exports by end-2011.

Gangavaram, also on the east coast, is already taking capes and will soon be able to import 35 million tonnes of coal.

"The long-held dream of capesize discharging at India has now become a reality and volumes will continue to increase," said Stuart Frost of ship brokers Lorentzen & Stemoco.

"It's astonishing. Breathtaking. We went to Gangavaram in March and just could not believe it. They can already discharge capes and will eventually take in 35 million tonnes of coal a year — just one port," one South African producer said.

These are two on a long list of ports being built by private firms in partnership with the government, which will dramatically speed up India's ability to import coal and open up the market to suppliers who need efficient logistics on the demand side.

"All the Indian ports are getting a facelift, but there are a lot of excellent new ports such as Mundra, Reva, Gangavaram and Krishnapatnam, which have worked their logistical connections right," said ports consultant Poul Jensen.

"Nobody believed they would do it, but it's one of the reasons I think the coal market should be looking more at India and China — India needs coal, it's not just arbitrage," said one European economist and coal expert.

India is also building a host of state and private coal-fired power plants plus private merchant power plants which sell power to local industry on a spot basis and could need as much as 200 million tonnes of imported coal within the next several years to feed these.

"India is one of those markets where the projections going forward are not just empty projections," said Anjali Bhasin, a director of ship brokers Braemar Seascope India.

"Coal has to come in. There is a certain amount of power that has to be generated and these are power projects that are on track, steel plants which are on track," she said.

India's infrastructure is changing radically, said Ajay D'Souza, head of Mumbai-based Crisil Research.

"The industry which was stagnating with no new investments or technological breakthroughs saw a radical change in the last couple of years and it will pick up more speed," D'Souza said.

The Indian government's aim is to expand major state ports to handle 1.5 billion tonnes of total cargo by 2012, but plans are behind target — a gap being filled by the private sector.