Shippers in India have lost US$65-70 million as a result of the collision between the MSC Chitra and the cargo ship Khalijia 3 off Mumbai on Saturday, according to the Western India
Shippers’ Association (WISA). The ports of Mumbai and Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNPT) have started accepting some ships but the clear-up operation, allowing services to fully resume, is not expected to be finished until the weekend.
“Each day of delay at the port awaiting sailing/discharge clearance leads to a loss of $20 million,” (WISA) secretary, SRL Narasimhan told IFW. He estimated that vessels which had completed discharging and loading operations and were awaiting clearance to sail were carrying some 7,000 export containers.
“There are reportedly around 33,000-35,000 export boxes inside the three terminals at JNPT awaiting the arrival of vessels for loading. “About 20 vessels bringing about 15,000teu of import boxes for offloading at JNPT have reportedly bypassed the port in the past two to three days.”
Narasimhan said almost all shipping lines had stopped taking bookings for exports through the affected container terminals and through Inland Container Depots (ICDs) and Container Freight Stations (CFSs) with services to the terminals. “Similarly, overseas bookings have also been suspended by lines for imports through JNPT and also for the hinterland ICDs in Delhi and National Capital Region,” he said.
“For import cargo some of the carriers have skipped Nhava Sheva and are now berthing at alternate ports and discharging Nhava Sheva cargo at Mundra or Pipavav.” With some 15-20 vessels scheduled for departure once the ports re-open, and another 25 vessels waiting to discharge, he said there would be backlogs and predicted shipments that had arrived at the ports in the last two weeks would suffer the worst delays.
Source: Mike King, IFW News, 12 August 2010