The announcement was made after trading hours on Thursday, 20 September 2012.

Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was up 233.90 points, or 1.27%, to 18,583.15.

On BSE, 1,440 shares were traded in the counter as against an average daily volume of 22,100 shares in the past one quarter.

The stock hit a high of Rs 88.80 and a low of Rs 87.70 so far during the day. The stock had hit a 52-week high of Rs 103 on 30 May 2012. The stock had hit a 52-week low of Rs 46.90 on 20 December 2011.

The stock had underperformed the market over the past one month till 20 September 2012, falling 11.06% compared with the Sensex's 3.72% rise. The scrip had also underperformed the market in past one quarter, falling 3.31% as against Sensex's 8.60% rise.

The small-cap company has an equity capital of Rs 410.46 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10.

Essar Ports said that it has refinanced its debt in a subsidiary Essar Bulk Terminal in Hazira through take out finance scheme of India Infrastructure Finance Company (IIFCL).

Essar Ports has availed the take out finance scheme to reduce its interest rate by over two and half per cent on Rs 405 crore, which is part of debt taken for building its 30 million tonne capacity bulk terminal at Hazira in Gujarat.

Takeout finance of the infrastructure projects by IIFCL is the government initiative wherein an infrastructure project on commissioning can replace some of its costly domestic rupee debt with finances from IIFCL. This lowers the interest burden on infrastructure projects and facilitates incremental lending to infrastructure sector by freeing up the capital of banks.

The company, which has a total debt of about a billion dollars, could explore further availing the benefits of such a scheme for cutting the cost of its infrastructure project, Vadinar Port Terminal, a 12 million tonne all weather deep draft facility which is located in Gujarat.

Speaking about the development, Shailesh Sawa - Director Finance, Essar Ports said, As part of our constant endeavor to reduce the cost of debt, we have availed government initiated scheme of take out finance. This will reduce our cost of debt and we will undertake more such initiatives to deliver better returns to our shareholders.

On a consolidated basis, Essar Ports' net profit rose 73% to Rs 68.52 crore on 18.2% increase in net sales to Rs 324.50 crore in Q1 June 2012 over Q1 June 2011.

Essar Ports is one of the largest port companies of India, with a current capacity of 88 MMTPA. The capacity is being expanded to 158 MMTPA over the next few years. Essar Ports has two operational ports at Hazira and Vadinar. The Hazira port is an all-weather, deep-draft port with 30 MMTPA of dry bulk and break bulk cargo handling capacity. Vadinar is also an all-weather, deep-draft port with 58 MMTPA of liquid cargo handling capacity.

Essar Ports is currently developing two terminals at Paradip with a capacity of 30 MMTPA comprising an iron ore berth of 16 MMTPA and a coal berth of 14 MMTPA. The company is also setting up a dry bulk terminal at Salaya with a capacity of 20 MMTPA. Additionally, the company plans to expand its Hazira port capacity by 20 MMTPA -- taking its capacity to 50 MMTPA.

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