JSW Infrastructure is a bright star today morning; from its close of Rs.202.80, the stock opened higher at Rs.217.70 and went on to hit a new 52-week high at Rs.220. Profit booking came in at the highs and the stock is now trading at Rs.212 levels.

The company announced yesterday after market hours that it has emerged as the winning bidder for development of all-weather, deep-water, greenfield port at Keni in Karnataka on Public Private Partnership (PPP) basis. Interestingly, the other bidder was Adani.

As per the RFP document, the estimated cost of the project is Rs. 4,119 crore with initial capacity of 30 MTPA.

The proposed port’s hinterland is primarily of coal and coke cargo which is being utilized for steel, cement and power plants. It is also further supported by Iron ore, limestone, dolomite handlings and export of finished steel products.

As per the Karnataka Maritime Perspective Plan, Karnataka is currently having hinterland potential of 44 MTPA of cargo and this is expected to increase to 117 MTPA by 2035. On comparison of the future demand and the capacity being handled by the present ports, it was concluded that there is a need for a deep draft port to fulfil the cargo handling gap requirement in future. Hence, the concept of alternate port for NMPA emerged, which aims at development of the Port at Keni.