Kamarajar Port
Kamarajar Port, formerly Ennore Port, is located on the Coromandel Coast, Chennai about 18 km north of Chennai Port. It is the 12th major port of India, and the first port in India which is a public company. The Kamarajar Port Limited is the only corporatised major port and is registered as a company. Chennai Port Trust acquired around 67% stake of Centre in the Kamarajar Port Limited on 27 March 2020. The remaining 23 percent was already held by the Chennai Port Trust.
The port has been able to attract an investment of 26,000 million by private entrepreneurs on various terminals and harbour craft. Kamarajar Port Limited, designed as Asia's energy port, is the first corporatised port in India and has only 86 employees. Envisaged being a satellite port to decongest and improve the environmental quality at the bustling Chennai Port, Kamarajar Port Limited is evolving itself into a full-fledged port with the capacity to handle a wide range of products. With a permissible draught of 13.5 m, the port handled a total volume of 11.01 million tonnes in 2010–11, up by 2.86 per cent from the previous year.
History
Ennore Port was originally conceived as a satellite port to the Chennai Port, primarily to handle thermal coal to meet the requirement of Tamil Nadu Electricity Board, and was endowed with large chunks of land. The scope was expanded taking into account subsequent developments such as the plan of Government of Tamil Nadu to set up a 1,880 mW LNG power project in association with a private consortium, a large petrochemical park and a naphtha cracker plant. Ennore Port was commissioned by the then Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee on 1 February 2001. The port was set up under the Companies Act, keeping it outside the scope of the Tariff Authority for Major Ports, the tariff regulator for 11 of the 12 ports owned by the Indian government. The port was declared as a major port under the Indian Ports Act, 1908 in March 1999 and incorporated as the Ennore Port Limited under the Companies Act, 1956 in October 1999. Commercial operations commenced with Handymax geared vessels for unloading of thermal coal on 22 June 2001. With the deployment of self-unloading and gearless vessels of 65,000/77,000 dead weight tonnage, full-fledged operations were started in December 2002.With the acquisition of about 440 hectares of land, the first phase of the port consisted of the construction of a coal jetty, a wharf and an entrance channel and related dredging operations. The main construction work included two berths for handling coal vessels up to 65,000 DWT, dredging for the approach channel and harbour basin, onshore civil works, navigational aids, and two breakwaters—4 km in the north side and 1 km in the south—close to the NCTPS and the Ennore Creek. In 2014, the port was officially renamed as Kamarajar Port.
Location and geography
Ennore Port lies on the northeastern corner of the Chennai City of Tamil Nadu State on a flat coastal plain known as the Eastern Coastal Plains. It is located on the east coast of the Indian peninsula known as the Coromandel Coast in the Bay of Bengal and is situated 2.6 km north of the Ennore Creek. Nearby railway station is Athipattu Pudunagar. Being coastal and situated on the thermal equator zone, the port experiences minimal variations in seasonal temperature ranging from a maximum of 38–42 °C in summer to a minimum of 18–20 °C in winter. The weather is hot and humid for most of the year, and the region features a tropical wet and dry climate. The northeast monsoon winds brings seasonal rainfall in the region from September to December, and occasionally cyclones. The annual rainfall in the region is about 1400 mm. The most prevailing winds are the southwesterly between April and October and the northeasterly during the rest of the year. The port is located on a region that falls under Seismic Zone III indicating a moderate risk of earthquake. The Ennore Creek in the south separates the port from the town of Ennore.Image:Ennore Creek sunset.jpg|400px|thumb|center|Ennore Creek
Operations
Commissioned in 2001 and operating on a landlord port concept, it is outsourcing all services required for operation and maintenance, and new terminals are being developed with the participation of the private sector. During the year of 2010–11, it handled a total cargo of 11.01 million tons. The port has effectively taken over all the ore movement from the Chennai Port. By 2016, the port is expected to have the capacity to handle over 80 million tons of cargo and its coal-handling capacity is expected to be about 43 million tons. The port is equipped to handle 16 million tonnes of coal per year from its two dedicated coal berths with 15 m alongside depth and staffed by TNEB, while its third berth promoted by Chettinad International Coal Terminal, is a common user facility that can handle 8 million tonnes per annum.| Year | Cargo |
| 2001–02 | 3.401 |
| 2002–03 | 8.485 |
| 2003–04 | 9.277 |
| 2004–05 | 9.479 |
| 2005–06 | 9.168 |
| 2006–07 | 10.71 |
| 2007–08 | 11.56 |
| 2008–09 | 11.50 |
| 2009–10 | 10.703 |
| 2010–11 | 11.01 |
| 2015–16 | 32.21 |
| 2016–17 | 30.02 |
| 2017–18 | 30.45 |
| 2018–19 | 34.50 |
The approach channel to the port is 3,775 m long. The minimum depth of the entrance channel is 16 m below chart datum and the minimum width is 250 m. The turning basin is 600 m in diameter with a minimum depth of 15.5 m BCD. The breakwaters in the port are of rubble-mound type with accropode armour protection. The northern breakwater measures 3,080 m and the southern breakwater measures 1,070 m.
The port has adequate road and rail links. The Port has obtained an in-principle approval from Southern Railways for providing rail connectivity to coal and iron ore stackyards. Ennore Port Limited is also developing an 8-lane Northern Express Road, which would link the port with the National Highway No. 5. It has a -long coal wharf for berthing two Panamax-size vessels and fully mechanised systems for handling 16 million tons of cargo a year. Designed as a world-class port, with two breakwaters—one in the north measuring and the other in the south measuring with a depth of —it has the capacity to develop 22 berths for handling a variety of bulk, liquid, and container cargo. The port is an artificial port with features including all-weather, round-the-clock operations and transport interface.
According to the Maritime Agenda 2010–20, the port traffic is projected to increase to 67.44 million tonnes in 2016–17 and 71.54 million tonnes in 2019–20. Against this projected traffic growth, the port's capacity is expected to increase from the existing 16 million tonnes to 73 million tonnes in 2016–17. The major economic activities through which traffic and capacity will rise are development of LNG and coal terminals and expansion of outer harbour stage II and development of container terminal, respectively. The target set for the port for 2010–11 is 13.20 million tonnes against a target of 12.45 million tonnes during the previous fiscal.
During 2010–11, the port handled a total of 294 vessels, including 184 dry bulk, 87 liquid bulk, 22 break bulk and 1 container vessels against 273 vessels in 2009–10, registering a 7.69% increase.
Car exports took place through the port for the first time in 2010–11. A total of 54,264 cars were exported through the port by Renault-Nissan Automotive India Pvt. Ltd.
The Marine Liquid Terminal constructed at a cost of 2,500 million is already operational since January 2009.
Being a corporate port, Ennore Port is the only major port in the country paying dividend to the government. During the year 2010–11, the port reported a post-tax profit of 555.8 million as against 486.6 million in the previous year. The operating ratio of the port is the lowest among all the major ports in India at 33.56 per cent during 2010–11.
Cargo handled by Ennore Port :
| Commodity | 2007–08 | 2008–09 |
| Thermal coal | 9.05 | 9.71 |
| Iron ore | 2.19 | 1.11 |
| Petroleum, oil and lubricants | 0.32 | 0.68 |
| Total | 11.56 | 11.50 |
As of 2017, the port handled more than 200,000 cars, chiefly by Nissan and Ford, outnumbering the neighbouring Chennai Port.
Terminals
The Chettinad International Coal Terminal, the private terminal at the port capable of handling Panamax ships, commenced operations in January 2011 and is targeting to handle nearly 5 million tonnes of coal/coke by current financial year ending 31 March 2012. The terminal was completed with equipments and conveyor systems, yard and evacuations systems with capacity to handle 8 million tonnes of coal/coke annually at project outlay of about 4,000 million.The Ennore Container Terminal, also known as the Bay of Bengal Gateway Terminal, will have an eventual planned annual capacity of 2.4 million TEUs and will be capable of handling three mainline vessels simultaneously. The construction is expected to begin by end of 2011 at a cost of £207 million, allowing the first ships to be handled in 2013. The terminal for 6,000-to-8,000 TEU vessels will have a quay length of 1,000 m with 15 m water depth at the berths and will be able to handle three container vessels of up to 8,000 TEUs simultaneously.
| Berth | Capacity | Max permissible length | Max permissible draught | Type of cargo | Size | Type of vessels |
| Coal Berth 1 | 8 | 240 | 13.5 | Thermal coal | 65,000–77,000 | Handymax and Panamax size vessels |
| Coal Berth 2 | 4 | 240 | 13.5 | Thermal coal | 65,000–77,000 | Handymax and Panamax size vessels |
| Marine Liquid Terminal 1 | 3 | 260 | 13.5 | POL/chemicals | Up to 1,50,000 | |
| Chettinad International Coal Terminal | 8 | 260 | 13.5 | Coal | Up to 1,50,000 |
The Indian Oil Corporation Ltd's Liquid Natural Gas import terminal at the port, which began in November 2015, is scheduled to open in October 2018. Built at a cost of 51,510 million, it has a capacity of 5 million tonnes per annum, with provisions to increase it to 6 million tonnes without any addition and to 10 million tonnes by the addition of two more tanks. At the initial stages, the plant would function at 20 to 25 percent of its capacity, supplying natural gas to industries in the Manali industrial area, including Madras Fertilizers Ltd., Chennai Petroleum Corporation and Tamil Nadu Petroproducts. Gas will reach the terminal in liquid form in order to ease transportation and it will be re-gassified before supplying it through pipelines to fertilizer industries to be used as gas-based feedstock, replacing naphtha. In would also be used to generate power or run furnace in other industries.