Essar Ports Tuna Tekra Terminal: Rs 2,276 Crore Kandla Award

Essar Ports has the Letter of Award for a Rs 2,276.06 crore multipurpose cargo terminal at Tuna Tekra, Kandla, issued by the Deendayal Port Authority on 21 October. For equipment buyers in Gujarat this is a two-part story: a berth-and-yard construction job first, and then a dry-cargo terminal that will need its own handling fleet for 30 years.

What DPA awarded

DPA chairman Sushil Kumar Singh handed the LoA to Essar Ports CEO Ashish Rajgarhia, according to the ANI report. IANS carried the same cost split, capacity and berth figures separately, with Rajgarhia calling the project the foundation of the company’s next phase of growth. DPA’s Rs 723.49 crore covers dredging of the access channel, berth pockets and turning circle, plus a common approach road. No construction timetable or EPC contractor was named in the reports we read.

What it means for buyers

Start with who buys. On a BOT terminal Essar is its own client: it picks the berth contractor, sets the programme and buys or hires the cargo-handling kit itself. That makes open-market hire pull-through thinner than on a government EPC job of the same size, and it puts most of the spend in one procurement office.

The build phase is concrete-heavy. Four 300 m berths are piled marine structures, so expect piling rigs, crawler and mobile cranes, batching plants and transit mixers on the waterfront. Behind the quay, a dry-cargo stockyard is mostly a compaction job, because coal, fertiliser and steel coils sit as heavy static loads. That means dozers, motor graders and vibratory soil compactors, plus tippers hauling stone and fill from inland quarries. Dredging, by contrast, is marine plant and sits outside the land fleet.

The operating phase is where the steadier demand sits. A dry-bulk berth works with grab cranes at the ship, then wheel loaders and excavators in the stockyard, hoppers, dumpers and, for breakbulk, reach stackers and forklifts. Our port equipment page lists the classes and makers in this space.

Some quick arithmetic gives a sense of scale. The total works out to roughly Rs 569 crore per berth, or about Rs 1.9 crore per metre of quay. At the full 18.33 MTPA, the Rs 61 royalty would come to around Rs 112 crore a year for DPA. That figure is our own calculation at rated capacity. Actual volumes and any royalty indexation were not reported.

Our take: this is a 2027-onwards opportunity, not a Q3 one. The LoA still has to become a signed concession agreement, and Essar then has to reach financial close before piling starts. DPA’s approach road is the piece most likely to reach an open tender first.

FAQ

Who won the Tuna Tekra multipurpose cargo terminal?

Essar Ports Limited. Deendayal Port Authority issued it the Letter of Award on 21 October 2026 after a global competitive bid, which Essar won as highest bidder at a royalty of Rs 61 per tonne.

How is the Rs 2,276.06 crore cost split?

The terminal itself takes Rs 1,552.57 crore from Essar Ports, while DPA puts in Rs 723.49 crore for common-user works: dredging of the channel, berth pockets and turning circle, and a common approach road.

When will construction start?

No start date was published. A concession agreement and financial close usually come first on a BOT port terminal, so site mobilisation is some months away.

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Source: GK Today