Essar Ports eyes V shaped recovery; cargo handling in Q1 at 11.23 million tonnes

NEW DELHI: Essar Ports on Tuesday said it has handled 11.23 million tonnes (MT) of cargo in the first quarter of 2020-21 and targets a V-shaped recovery. The company said its cargo handling had dipped to 2.52 MT in April 2020 but green shoots of economic recovery has resulted in boosting its cargo handling in June 2020 to 4.41 MT.
"Between March and May this year, the longest lockdown of the world was imposed across India to check the spread of COVID-19. Business operations came to a halt and all industries were affected. In the first quarter of FY2020-21, businesses have been on the move ... to return to old performance levels. At Essar Ports, there was a dip in cargo handling in April 2020 on account of dwindling production of its key customers-mainly power and steel companies," the company said in a statement.

However, during the April-June quarter, Essar Ports recorded an impressive cargo handling of 11.23 million tonnes (MT), with June 2020 cargo growing by 75 per cent compared to the April tonnage, the company said.

"Essar Ports takes pride in manifesting the honourable PM's dream of an Aatmanirbhar Bharat. In June 2020, Unlock#1 was unleashed across the country, and the economy immediately started displaying green shoots of recovery.

"Our terminals, which remained operational despite challenges faced through the successive phases of the lockdown, have clocked an impressive cargo handling of 11.23 MT," Essar Ports Limited CEO & MD Rajiv Agarwal said.

Essar Ports specializes in development and operations of ports and terminals for handling dry bulk, break bulk, liquid and general cargo.

It is one of the largest private sector port operators in India in terms of capacity and throughput.

It has four operational terminals in India-one each in Hazira and Salaya (both in Gujarat) on the west coast, and in Visakhapatnam and Paradip on the east coast. The current operational capacity of the port terminals in India is 110 MT per annum.