VPA Conveyor Fire Puts Contractor Risk Cover on Test

Fire at the Sea Horse Junction Conveyor

Visakhapatnam Port Authority's Sea Horse junction conveyor caught fire on 30 October while still under construction. That one fact decides who pays.

The blaze started around 1.45 pm close to the JM Baxi Group's terminal footprint at the port's northern arm, formerly the Visakhapatnam Port Trust estate, sending smoke across the junction.

VPA's fire wing responded; the fire was not under control when first reports were filed. No casualty has been confirmed.

Contract Position and Risk Transfer

Contract position matters more than the damage.

VPA procures its coal and ore evacuation upgrades through EPC and mechanisation packages in which risk transfers on taking over, well after a belt is strung.

A conveyor that is erected but not accepted stays inside the contractor's care and custody exposure, carried by its construction all-risk policy.

VPA's loss is measured in weeks of commissioning schedule, not in steel and rubber.

The Specification Question

Then the specification question.

Belt installed at Indian ports is normally specified as fire-retardant, antistatic grade to IS 3181, with test certificates lodged at inspection.

A fire on an uncommissioned belt more often tracks back to:

- welding slag
- a hot-work permit signed without a fire watch stationed at the point of work
- a temporary cable fault
- a subcontractor working unsupervised outside the permit window

Insurers will ask for the method statement before they ask for the belt's compound.

A Structural Fire Path

The structural point is bigger than one fire.

VPA is replacing open road and rail loading with closed conveyor corridors that now thread through a working estate, past third-party terminal operators and fishing harbour traffic at Sea Horse.

Each corridor doubles as a fire path.

Each hot-work permit sits inside live cargo operations.

Pricing the Next Mechanisation Tender

Contractors pricing the Authority's next mechanisation tender should carry fire watch, standby water and segregated hot-work zones as priced line items.

Underwriters are already reading those clauses that way.