Calcutta, Sept. 18: The Calcutta Port Trust's long-awaited transloading operation for big ships is set to start before Diwali with Tata Steel agreeing to bring coking coal for its Hooghly Met Coke unit to Haldia.

The plan, if it becomes regular, has the potential to attract additional cargo to the port and bring down logistics cost for users.

A meeting last week of CPT chairman M.T. Krishna Babu with officials of steel giants Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) and Tata Steel threw up the possibility of starting the operation that involves unloading bulk cargos such as coal from big ships to smaller ships on the sea.

"We had a fruitful discussion with both the companies. I'm hoping that transloading will start by early October," Babu said.

The port has been wooing the steel duo with sops to shore up its falling cargo. Both the Calcutta Dock System and the Haldia Dock Complex posted decline in volume between April and August.

Ships brought 7.40 per cent less cargo during this period to the CPT, the biggest decline among the 12 major ports of the country.

Cargo volumes during this period increased 4.6 per cent at all the ports combined.

Coking and thermal coal are two of the biggest contributors to the fall in cargo.

"Haldia is predominantly a coal port. But we are losing cargo to Dhamra. Transloading can bring some of those back to Bengal," a port official said.

Sources said SAIL was yet to fully commit itself to bringing more vessels to Haldia even as the Tatas saw benefit for its Hooghly Met Coke operation, which is located on the banks of the river, close to the Haldia dock. The Tatas may even bring around a million tonne more coal.

"We want a demonstrative sustained operation so that users sitting on the edge get confidence in this operation," a CPT official pointed out.

The CPT and private port operator Jindal ITF had slashed their transhipment rates in July, but this has not resulted in additional cargo.

The duo had agreed to reduce the tariff by Rs 150 a tonne to make their operations competitive vis-a-vis the neighbouring ports of Dhamra and Paradip in Odisha.

Freight rate revision

There is a buzz of further cuts following new freight rates announced by the railways, which has made short hauls more expensive than the long ones for coal cargo.

The railway rejig has once again widened the price gap in transloading that had been reduced when the CPT and JITF reduced their tariffs.

Even though Haldia offers a faster evacuation of cargo via good rail-road connectivity, shippers are forced to look elsewhere as they cannot bring big vessels to Bengal because of the siltation in the Hooghly river.

Transloading will allow users to bring fully loaded with cargo Capesize or Panamax vessels to the high sea, near Kanika Sands in Odisha, about 90 nautical miles south of Haldia, and transfer the cargo to smaller vessels bound for Haldia. JITF plans to station a ship to temporarily store the cargo in case the smaller vessels are busy or take time to reach the spot.

At present, Panamax vessels unload 65 per cent of their cargo either at Dhamra or Paradip and come to Haldia. Capesize vessels do not come to Haldia at all because of the Hooghly's poor navigability.

When fully operational, the initiative can bring 2.5-3 million tonnes cargo to Haldia and bring down logistics cost of users.