JSW Infrastructure aims Rs 10,000 crore capex over five years

JSW Infrastructure, JSW Group‘s port working entity, aims for a capital expenditure of Rs 10,000 crore over five years and to raise debt value as much as $400 billion via issuance of bonds. JSW Infra CEO, Arun Maheshwari, in an interview, told the media that almost all of the capital expenditure would be on greenfield port projects comprising the Rs 3,800 planned facility at Nargol Gujarat, by which it has shown a financial interest. He said that bringing a greenfield port and putting in place a capex plan for that is on the wishlist always. Any greenfield port will cost about Rs 5,000 crore to 7,000 crore. The port will be established in the Valsad district of southern Gujarat. JSW holds and operates ports in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Goa, Odisha and Tamil Nadu. In the coming two months, it will have its first fully commercial non-captive 30 million ton coal export terminal in Paradip, Odisha up, and running. Its planned container terminal in Mangaluru will be functional from December 2021. The terminal can manage 200,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) of containers yearly and has the potential to expand to half a million TEUs in another 4-5 years, said Maheshwari. JSW is within the race to v construct a multi-cargo terminal in Paradip. Last year, it funded Rs 1,000 crore in Chennai-based Chettinad Group’s ports enterprise and took control of its work in November 2020. While JSW Infra has been labelled as a port operator for captive cargo for its parent's companies, Maheshwari said third party cargo as a chunk of total raised to 25% in 2020 from 6-8% in 2018. The plan is for that chunk to expand to 40% by 2023. Maheshwari said that the firm would proceed to have a look at opportunities in Gujarat and Odisha. Additionally, he said that the firm aims to get into the container freight station segment probably by partnership with a firm within the cities of Mangaluru, Chennai or the state of Maharashtra. JSW moves 13-14 mt of coastal cargo as of now. The quantity will jump to around 20 mt, Maheshwari added, saying expansion in this segment continues to be a challenge because of the lack of adequate backend infrastructure. Image Source