Chennai Port - Traffic Growth

Traffic Growth

From 1881 to 1945, the cargo handled in Madras port varied from 0.5 million tonnes to 1 million tonnes. By 1979-80, the traffic touched 10 million tonnes and increased to 15 million tonnes in 1984-85. By 1991-92, the volume was 25 million tonnes, touching 41 million tonnes in 2000-01. Though there was a slump in the next three years, mainly due to the transfer of about 9 million tonnes of thermal coal to the Ennore port, the port recovered to handle 47.25 million tonnes in 2005-06. In 2009-10, the port handled 61.06 million tonnes of cargo against 57.49 million tonnes in 2008-09 marking an increase of 6.20 per cent and has set a target to handle 75 million tonnes in 2011-12 and 100 million tonnes in 2015-16. In 2010-11, the port handled 61.46 million tonnes, a 0.66 per cent increase over the previous fiscal. The target set for the port for 2010-11 is 65.51 million tonnes against a target of 64.00 million tonnes during the previous fiscal. The terminal's throughput has increased from around 829,000 TEUs in 2006 to around 1.19 million TEUs in 2008. Crane productivity has been improved from 22 moves per hour per quay crane in 2006 to over 27 in 2009. The port annually handles nearly 20 million tonnes of both coal (8 million tonnes) and iron ore (12 million tonnes).

During 2009-10, the container traffic from the first terminal reached 1.216 million TEUs against 1.14 million TEUs in the previous fiscal. In 2010-11, this increased to 1.523 million TEUs, a 25 per cent growth over the previous year. The second terminal handled over 300,000 TEUs during the calendar year 2010—up from 26,000 TEUs handled in the 3 months of operations since start up in 2009. The car exports from this port touched 273,917 units in 2009-10, 10.14 per cent more than the previous year's 248,697 units, despite the recession.

The annual growth for container volumes handled by the Chennai port during the last 5 years till 2009-10 was 13 to 14 per cent, while the average annual container growth in Indian ports is in the order of 8%. The growth increased to 25 per cent during 2010-11, the largest growth rate among the top three container ports comprising JNPT, Chennai and Tuticorin. This is primarily due to capacity addition with the second terminal commencing operations coupled with new services starting to call the Chennai port.

The port currently has the capacity to handle 3,000,000 TEUs and with the commissioning of the third mega container terminal being planned, the capacity would go up to 8,000,000 TEUs.

Due to excessive pollution from coal dust, the port for a brief period of time suspended shipping food grain. However, following the transfer of coal shipments to the neighbouring Ennore Port since 2002, handling of food grain was resumed after about 9 years in 2003. The port hopes to handle 4 million tonnes of food grain annually over the next few years.

The following table lists the number of vessels handled in the past: