Phase 1 of Bharat Mumbai Container Terminals (BMCT), Indian largest sea port infrastructure project involving the government and foreign investors was commissioned at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) at the end of December 2017, informs The Times of India.

The USD 1.24 bln terminal is being constructed as a public-private partnership with Singapore’s port operator PSA International and is considered India’s biggest foreign direct investment in the port project.

As we wrote earlier, BMCT will become the fifth container terminal at JNPT, the biggest container port in India, handling annually about 55% of the country’s containerized cargo (around 4.5 mln TEU). PSA joins here other global terminal operators: APMT and DP World.

BMCT Phase 1 has 3 berths with a total length of 1,000m, 16.5m deep, and an annual capacity of 2.4 mln TEU. Once the construction is completed in 2021, BMCT will be the largest container terminal in India, with a quay length of 2,000m, 24 quay cranes and a designed capacity of 4.8 mln TEU per year.

JNPT expects that with the commissioning of the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) in 2019, establishing a rail connection between Mumbai and Delhi, the volume of export-import trade will double and the terminal will provide the capacity to handle these higher trade volumes.

According to PSA, BMCT’s rail facilities will be the largest in India and the only on-dock DFC-compliant facilities at JNPT, capable of handling 1.5km long, 360 TEU container trains.

The company already secures agreements with service providers to facilitate future operations. Thus, in mid-December 2017, BMCT announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with Container Corporation of India (Concor) to launch dedicated container trains running between BMCT and Concor’s Rail Transhipment Hubs at Kathuwas and Jakhwada, which will operate as BMCT’s inland extended gateways for North and West India.

Earlier, BMCT signed another Memorandum of Understanding – with PNP Maritime Services Pvt Ltd, a logistics operator running a lighterage port at Dharamtar, to handle a regular container barge service between Dharamtar Port and BMCT.

In 2017, PSA International handled 74.24 mln TEU at its port projects around the world, +9.8% over 2016. The Group’s flagship PSA Singapore Terminals contributed 33.35 mln TEU (+9.0%) and those facilities outside Singapore handled 40.89 mln TEU (+10.4%).