Essar Ports Ltd., has entered into a concessional agreement with Visakhapatnam Port Trust for the development and operation of three iron ore berths at Visakhapatnam Port.

The concession agreement  involves the construction, operation and transfer for a period of 30 years of three berths, two being outer harbor berths and one inner harbor berth, that will have a combined capacity of 23 million metric tons per annum.

The project will be developed at a cost of US$200 million over a period of three years.

Rajiv Agarwal, Managing Director of Essar Ports, said:

We will develop the terminal to create one of the most competitive, modernized, world class facilities. This project will significantly increase our third party cargo handling capacity and also boost our presence in the east coast. Iron ore export traffic at Vizag will increase substantially due to the competitiveness of this terminal which will facilitate industrial growth in the region.

This project will increase Essar Ports' total capacity for iron ore export on the east coast to 39 MMTPA with 4 highly mechanized iron ore berths (three in Visakhapatnam Port and one in Paradip Port).

Essar Ports is currently developing a coal terminal at Paradip of 14 MMTPA capacity and a dry bulk terminal at Salaya of 20 MMTPA capacity. The company also has plans to expand its Hazira capacity by 20 MMTPA. With this new project at Visakhapatnam port, Essar Ports' capacity under construction will increase by 23 MMTPA, taking the total under construction capacity to 77 MMTPA.