Adani Group continues to pump in huge money at Mundra
AHMEDABAD : Adani Group is investing ₹4 lakh crore – both ongoing and in new projects – in the next 6 years at Mundra in Gujarat’s Kutcch region. The investment is expansion of the port, including construction of a new berth to handle copper ore; and a copper smelter plant, a green hydrogen project and renewable energy, said a senior company official. Power is only sector in which no major expansion is happening, he added.
Total investments made by the Adani group at the Mundra location has been more than ₹70,000 crore, says an advertisement issued by the group on the port, which turned 25 years. Mundra port’s total contribution to the State and National exchequer over the last 25 years has been more than ₹2.25 lakh crore.
From barren land a quarter century ago, the port is today India’s largest commercial port. From a handful of tonnes in 1998, the Adani port at Mundra went on to handle 100 million tonnes (MT) in 2014 – then the first port in India to do so. Today, the port handles over 155 MT (again the first in India), which constitutes nearly 11 per cent of India’s maritime cargo. Mundra is also the EXIM gateway for container traffic with 33 per cent of India’s container traffic flows through the port across a dedicated freight corridor that offers the facility of double-stack containers from the northern hinterland to Mundra.
The container terminals are being expanded by nearly 1 km to add three more berths, the official said.
VLCC
Adani is also constructing a VLCC (very large crude carrier) berth with plans to commission it by the year end or by March quarter. Presently, the crude is being handled at the single buoy mooring (two) for Indian Oil Corporation and HPCL-Mittal Energy Limited (HMEL) in the outer anchorage about 8.6 km from the port. From there the cargo passes through the seabed pipeline to the storage tanks, he said.
While IOC and HMEL will keep operating at the SBM, the new VLCC berth is for Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd to bring crude oil for their plant in Rajasthan, he said.
Right now, on a daily basis 25,000 people are required to run the port. After the expansion in the port, another 35,000 people. The port’s handling capacity will also double, he said.
Copper
A new berth is being constructed to handle copper ore. Construction of the copper smelter plant is going on with plans to commission it by next financial year.
Kutch Copper Limited (KCL), a subsidiary of Adani Enterprises Ltd (AEL), is setting up a greenfield copper refinery project for production of refined copper with 1 MTPA (million tons per annum) in two phases. The overall cost in the project is ₹8,700 crore with production likely to start during the next financial year.
For the phase one, the capacity of 0.5 MTPA, KCL has achieved financial closure through a syndicated club loan for the greenfield copper refinery project at Mundra, Gujarat, with the execution of financing documents with the consortium of banks led by State Bank of India (SBI), says a release issued in June 2022.
With Vedanta’s smelter plant in Thoothukudi being shut due to environment-related issues, the KCL could possibly fill gap to a certain extent in meeting the growing demand for copper in the country.
Petrochemical
Work on the petrochemical park has already started and the project will be completed in five years, the official said.