Posco, PPT to set up team on Paradip Port

PARADIP: Posco-India and Paradip Port Trust (PPT) authorities on Thursday decided to set up a six-member joint committee to study possibility of the steel major using the existing port facility at Paradip. The study would be carried out from April 2 to 14.A delegation of the Posco-India, which had proposed to set up a 12 MTPA greenfield steel mill near the Port Town at an investment of Rs 52,000 crore, met the officials of the PPT including its Chairman G Jagannath Rao to discuss the project.A team of officials of Posco-India led by Deputy Managing Director Ho Chan Rue visited the Paradip Port and held a meeting with the Port officials on the availability of infrastructure on Thursday.Last month, the Paradip Port Trust (PPT) had offered Posco-India its facility, located barely 12 km from the steel major’s proposed captive port site at Jatadhar mouth in Jagatsinghpur district.The Posco team informed that the company would be importing about 25 million tonne of raw materials for grounding the steel plant work. The company aims to produce four million tonne of steel per annum by 2016.Deputy Chairman, PPT, Ananat Kumar Bose said PPT was quite efficient to handle any cargo of the proposed steel plant as the Port had skilled manpower, extra land, berths and other facilities. It may be noted that the Posco-India’s proposal to set up its captive port had run into rough weather after environmentalists and the PPT authorities raised concerns over its damaging effect on the existing Paradip Port. The State Government had asked the steel major to prepare a detailed project report (DPR) for its proposed port near Paradip Port as per the suggestions of the Central Water and Power Research Station (CWPRS), Pune. Prior to that, the CWPRS had assessed adverse impact of Posco-India’s proposed port on the existing major port at Paradip. Pending submission of the DPR, the PPT had offered Posco-India its port for cargo operations.