BHUBANESWAR, November 16: Leading multinational companies shortlisted for the Gopalpur port project now want more time to decide whether the port will, at all, get the cargo required to justify the huge investment that they have to make. At a high-level negotiation meeting here last week, representatives of the companies said the port must get at least 20 million tonnes of cargo a year to justify the Rs 3000-crore investment required to be made by the promoter under the build- own- operate- share and transfer (BOOST) scheme.

When the government officials failed to give them an assurance to this effect, the companies said they want six months time to study the economic viability of the project and submit final offers.

Their stand is a setback for chief minister JB Patnaik, as he has already announced that the promoter for the project will be selected by February 1998. The state had been planning to complete the port project by 2002, to coincide with the commissioning of the first phase of the integrated steel plant being set up by Tata Iron & Steel Co at Gopalpur.

With Tisco admitting recently that its project will be delayed, and promoters of some other big projects preferring to wait for the port to be upgraded first, the multinationals have become cautious about the project.Mitsubishi and some other companies even suggested that the government build a breakwater on the southern side of the port, which now operates only in fair weather from October to May and that too via lighterage. The breakwater will cost at least Rs 500 crore.

Situated 260 km north of Visakhapatnam and 160 km south of Paradip, Gopalpur is now a minor port handling mainly illeminite from a nearby unit of Indian Rare Earths Ltd and fertilisers.

Initially, the port was supposed to have been developed by MMTC, the government-owned trading corporation, together with the state government. Private participation was invited via international offers following the withdrawal of MMTC.

The state shortlisted 15 companies from the 64 that had applied. Apart from Mitsubishi, other big names include P&O Australia Ports Pty, a consortium led by IPCO International of Singapore, Reliance Industries Ltd, Thyssen Rheinstahl Technik GmbH of Germany, and a consortium led by Japan's Marubeni Corporation.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.