Cochin Port approaches KITCO for study on dredged sand use

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26 Aug, 2025 12:21

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Cochin Port, one of the 12 major ports in the country has approached KITCO to undertake a study on utilising dredged sand in the wake of about four million cubic metre of sand going waste every year. "Cochin Port Trust has approached KITCO to undertake a study for utilisation of dredged sand... It is estimated that around 4 million cubic metres of sand is being dredged from an area of about 5 km in the shipping channel and dumped in the outer sea every year," Shipping Ministry said in a statement today.

The port proposes to call a tender-cum-auction for a sand mining operation with a concession of 30 years. It will undertake the dredging and deliver the sand to this area by means of pipelines. The possibility of using the remaining dredged spoils will also be explored by the port.

Cochin Port has been exploring methods of reducing the net expenditure on maintenance of dredging. One of the suggestions in this regard was utilisation of the material from the dredging. "Approximately 21 million cubic metres of dredged material is currently being dumped by the Port in the designated dumping zone in the sea, 20 KMs from the shoreline," it said.

Earlier, efforts were made to use the material for landfills or as bio-fertilisers, the statement said adding, the efforts have not yielded any positive result so far because of the presence of heavy metals on the one side, and the problems of taking the material from the trailing suction hopper dredgers that the Port deploys. "The Port has now decided to concentrate on the area around Puthu Vypeen, where sand is available," it said adding that about 4 million cubic metres of sand is being dredged from an area. The Port now proposes to use this sand for construction purposes after segregating and subjecting it to washing.

This will be done on a PPP basis. The statement said about 24 acres of land is available to the west of the LNG terminal in Puthuvypeen and when the LNG terminal runs at 5 MMTPA, it will produce 2.4 MLD of de-mineralised water. This could be procured for washing operations on mutually acceptable terms from the Petronet LNG Ltd.