KARACHI: Coal importers from the private sector have sought government’spermission to use Pakistan Steel Mills’ (PSM) idle jetty, cargo conveyor beltand other equipment until the Pakistan International Bulk Terminal becomesoperational.

Incommunications with the ministries of industries and production and ports andshipping, the importers explained that a permission would help bring down thecost of imported coal by $4 a tonne and, therefore, ultimately benefit the PSMwhich would be earning more than Rs100 million a month.

Theybelieve that this would help meet growing demand for coal, mainly from cementand textile companies and steel re-rolling mills.

Saythis will help the steel mill earn Rs100m a month.

Moreover, coal consumption would rise significantly whencoal-fired power plants will become operational in the near future, and bothKarachi and Qasim ports could face congestion.

1. Younus Vayani, a shipping agent, charterer and operator,told Dawn that coal was being imported and handled at Karachi Port until abouttwo years ago when the Sindh High Court (SHC) restricted its storage level atthe Keamari Groyne because it was polluting the surrounding area.

The court restricted the volume to only 200,000 tonnesagainst the storage capacity of around one million tonnes, he added.

As a result, importers could no longer import coal in largervessels having a capacity of 60,000 tonnes as they needed a draft of around 13metres which is only available in Karachi Port’s berths.

However, in order to meet the economies of scale coalimporters found a way out and kept importing coal in larger vessels having13-metre draft.

But this lengthened the unloading process as vesselsinitially unloaded 30 per cent of the coal at Karachi Port and later reportedat Port Qasim where draft is around 10.5 metres, he said. The use of two portsraised the handing cost of vessels and port charges also doubled, he added.

Citing an example, he said the biggest coal importercurrently imports around 250,000 million tonnes a month, which means four tofive vessels with a load of 60,000 tonnes each have to call on both the ports.

The PSM coal jetty has a 13-metre draft and is lying idlebecause the steel mill is not functioning. If a coal importer pays servicecharges at the rate of $4 a tonne against the use of jetty, the steel mill willalone earn around $1m (around Rs100m) on handling of 250,000 tonnes of coal.

“This amount will enable the PSM to at leastmeet the monthly salary bill of its workers who have not been paid for the lastseveral months,” he maintained.