Indian Adani Ports CEO says worst is over, container volumes rising on month

New York — The slowdown in container markets is likely to end soon and volumes are expected to rise in the coming months, the CEO of Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ), Karan Adani, said Aug. 11 during the Indian company's first fiscal quarter of 2020 earnings call with analysts.

"In July, with the unlocking of the country, we saw a surge of 30% ... month on month in terms of the total volumes and when you see that year on year, we saw a 6% growth," Karan Adani said while responding to a question posed by S&P Global Platts. "What we see is that the worst is behind us and we would only see a continuing upswing trend going forward."

The shortfall in container availability caused by a dip in imports is likely to normalize in the next two months and India would be in a balanced trade situation again, according to the executive.

For the first time in 18 years, India reported a trade surplus in the month of June, with imports falling 47.6% on the year while exports dipped 12.4% year on year.

This led to an acute shortage of containers at major ports across the country.

Container volumes at Adani's Mundra port in Gujarat fell 18% on the year to 14.2 million metric ton in the three months that ended June 30, the company said. Meanwhile, containers share of volumes at Mundra to 55% of total cargo in the most recent quarter from 47% a year earlier.

Mundra surpassed Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) in Mumbai to become India's largest container handling port, the company said. Mundra handled 0.97 million twenty-foot-equivalent units (TEUs) in the quarter that began April 1, compared with 0.85 million TEUs handled by JNPT.

APSEZ handled a total of 1.23 million TEUs in the April through June quarter, compared with 3.22 million TEUs handled anywhere in India.

The company has 11 ports and terminals in India -- Mundra, Dahej, Kandla and Hazira in Gujarat; Dhamra in Odisha; Mormugao in Goa; Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh; and Kattupalli and Ennore in Chennai -- and is developing a transshipment port at Vizhinjam in Kerala and a container terminal in Myanmar.