ICTSI finalised the agreement with L&T Shipbuilding Ltd to manage and operate the Kattupalli Container Terminal in Tamil Nadu, India. “Kattupalli terminal is ICTSI’s first venture in India, the fourth largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity,” the port operator said. The location is a strategic one, since it will be able to snare some box traffic from both Chennai and Ennore.
L&T Shipbuilding, a joint venture between Larsen & Toubro Ltd and Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corp, is the developer of the Kattupalli integrated shipyard and which is currently under construction near Chennai in Thiruvallur District.
This first development phase, which aims to be operational by January 2012, will have a 1.2m teu capacity through two 350m long berths and a total terminal area of around 20 hectares. The terminal has an option to rise to 1.8 million teu capacity during the second phase of development.
ICTSI has also obtained the contract to operate and manage the new container terminal 2 (NCT-2) in Subic, which is adjacent to ICTSI’s NCT1 facility.
Together these will give the company a total terminal area of 30 hectares, a berth length of 560 meters and combined capacity of 600,000 teu. Partly funded by the Japanese, these are being developed to address the needs of northern and central Luzon and the predicted 14 million teu shortfall in capacity on the South East Asian routes.