Eight bids for JNPT terminal

Eight bids for JNPT terminal    Eight companies have submitted bids to build a new 800,000-TEU container terminal at India's largest port, the Jawaharlal Nehru-Nhava Sheva (JNPT) port complex near Mumbai.
   According to the Indian business newspaper Mint, the bidders include DP World, which already manages one of three existing terminals at the port, and Mundra Port and SEZ, which runs the country's busiest private container terminal in the western state of Gujarat. Most of the bidders were domestic companies, with large international terminal operators apparently not interested in the project.
   PSA International and APM Terminals, which both operate terminals in India (APM operates another of the Nhava Sheva terminals), did not bid, nor did China-based operators Hutchison Port Holdings and COSCO Pacific. India has maintained an unwritten policy of barring Chinese operators from managing terminals.
   The other operators may have been scared off by delays in the project — a previous attempt to bid out the terminal was scrapped in October after poor response from bidders — or by India's infamously rigid demands for royalties from container volume.
   The current terminal likely won't be the last chance for operators to invest in Nhava Sheva. The port, which is overseen by the Indian shipping ministry, is planning a 4 million-TEU terminal that would bring capacity close to 10 million, which is the level volume is projected to reach by 2015.