Singapore's PSA International (PSAI) has won the latest round of bidding to build and operate a fourth terminal at Mumbai's Jawaharlal Nehru Port, reportedly signing on for a 35.9 per cent revenue stake.
This marks an about turn by the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust Board, which in October 2012 formally withdrew a 30-year concession for the US$1.2 billion investment that had been awarded to the PSAI-led consortium, reported Lloyd's List.
PSAI already operates three container terminals in India, at Kolkata, Chennai and Tuticorin, but the Jawaharlal Nehru Port operates the nation's leading box terminal.
A PSA corporate spokesman told Containerisation International: "We confirm that PSA is the highest bidder in the tender for the development of the fourth container terminal in Jawarharlal Nehru Port in India."
Last year JNPT's container volumes declined by 2.9 per cent compared to the previous year to 4.1 million TEU.
In a separate development, an expansion plan for the port of Gujarat Pipavav on India's west coast has been given the green light by the government. The project includes increasing the annual capacity of the container yard from 850,000 TEU to 1.5 million TEU.
The port, in which APM Terminals is the largest stakeholder, was granted the approval by the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests after an environmental challenge lodged last year against the expansion was dismissed.
The port company handled 662,000 TEU in 2013, a year-on-year increase of 16 per cent, with fourth quarter volumes surging 18 per cent to 194,000 TEU.
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