Growing iron ore volumes at India's New Mangalore Port have prompted the governing trust to look at ways of improving
mechanical handling of shipments. Iron ore traffic has risen from 1mt (million tonnes) in 2003/04 to 18.12mt in the last
financial year. However, only manual handling systems using slings are in place.
Sical Logistics is to introduce a mechanical system on Berth 14 at a cost of $634 million; and this will allow a capacity of
6.62mt. The facility will cover an area of 145,000m2, of which 75,000m2 will be wholly within the port and a further 65,000m2 atan adjacent rail terminal.
Barry Cross