Gammon Infra to commission MbPT terminal by 2012-end

Gammon Infrastructure Projects (GIPL) hopes to commission its offshore container terminal port project at the Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT)  by the end of next year, managing director of the infrastructure company, KK Mohanty, said.

The Rs1,016 crore Indira Container Terminal (ICT) was to be completed this year. “There has been no delay from our side. In fact, our work is ahead of schedule but the port authorities delayed dredging activities,” Mohanty said.

Though ICT is presently a 50:50 joint venture between GIPL and Spain’s Dragados-SPL, GIPL is in the process of raising its stake to 74%. According to the agreement between the two companies signed in early 2010, GIPL will buy the remaining 26% from Dragados three years after the commercial operations begin.
ICT will have a capacity of 1.2 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units).

A TEU, used to measure a ship’s cargo-carrying capacity and a terminal’s cargo-handling capacity, is one container 20-foot long, which is the standard size of a container. In case the container is 40-foot long the cargo lifted is around 2 TEU.

ICT is one of GIPL’s three port projects. While the Vizag port has been operational since 2004, GIPL recently got the forest clearance from the environment ministry for the Rs518 crore iron ore terminal at Paradip, Orissa, in which it holds 31%. Other partners include Minerals & Metals Trading Corporation (MMTC) and Hong Kong’s Noble group.

The companies in July financially closed the project, which is expected to be operational by 2013.

Besides the three ports, GIPL has eight road projects, of which four are operational. Mohanty said two will be commissioned this fiscal and the last two in 2012-13. He said the company has emerged as the preferred bidder for a national highway project and is the only bidder for another project. He did not divulge more details about the projects since the National Highways Authority of India is yet to award the projects.

An August 17 report by IDFC Securities said the operations of GIPL’s commissioned projects have steadily improved resulting in higher cash flows.

“Although the company will need Rs220 crore in fiscal 2012 and Rs380 crore in fiscal 2013 to fulfill equity funding requirement in various BOT (build-operate-transfer) projects, we expect the company to raise funds via options such as rights issue, stake dilution in operational projects or securitisation of operational cash flows,” Shirish Rane, Salil Desai, Ashish Shah and Nikhil Salvi wrote in the report.

GIPL is also developing two hydel projects, one co-generation project and biomass plants in Punjab and Haryana.