The industrial picture

A port belt that runs on industrial packaging

Paradip is a working port town first and a city second. Almost every plywood requirement in the area traces back to a cargo flowing through the docks or a chemical line feeding them. The port handles iron ore, coking coal, thermal coal, POL products, fertilizer raw materials and a growing volume of containerised general cargo. It is the anchor, but the demand for industrial packaging fans out across a tight cluster of plants and estates sitting within 25 km of the berths.

Refinery and petrochemical belt

A large grassroots refinery sits on the southern flank of the port, and a downstream petrochemical cluster has grown around it — polypropylene units, MEG, paraxylene and an expanding complex. Shutdown seasons, catalyst movements, spare-parts inflows and finished-goods despatch generate continuous demand for engineering-grade crates and heat-treated pallets.

Fertilizer and chemicals

The phosphatic fertilizer complexes around the port (DAP, NPK) and the broader fertilizer-handling infrastructure mean a constant flow of bagging machinery spares, instrumentation, valves and imported sub-assemblies — all of which arrive or leave in wooden cases. The acid and ammonia handlers in the cluster add to the load.

Port-side and project cargo

The Paradip Port industrial area, the IDCO industrial estate at Paradip and the Kalinganagar / Duburi industrial belt about 100 km inland draw heavy project cargo through Paradip. Steel mills, power-plant equipment, transformers and heavy fabrications either land here or move out for export through this port — each consignment a multi-crate, multi-pallet job.

What we ship

Three product families for eastbound cargo

Almost every consignment we send eastbound is built around three product families: packing-grade plywood for case-makers, finished crates and pallets, and container flooring stock for trailer and reefer rebuilds. The mix shifts by season — fertilizer campaigns in pre-monsoon months, project cargo in Q3, refinery shutdowns scheduled around the turnaround calendar.

Packing-grade plywood — the workhorse

Our MR packing-grade plywood is the default specification for box-makers serving Paradip's fertilizer and petrochem buyers. Standard offerings:

• Thickness range: 6 mm, 8 mm, 10 mm, 12 mm, 14 mm, 15 mm, 16 mm and 18 mm
• Standard sheet size: 8 ft x 4 ft (2440 x 1220 mm) — custom-cut to box dimensions on request
• Core: rubberwood / commercial hardwood, hot-pressed
• Face veneer options: commercial, Gurjan or Okoume on the MR packing grade and on our BWR grade
• Moisture: 8–12% kiln-conditioned, suited to coastal climate

For petrochem spares and refinery turnaround crates that travel under tarpaulin or hit monsoon transhipment, we recommend the BWR grade with an Okoume face — phenolic-bonded, marginally better against humidity ingress, and noticeably stiffer at the same thickness.

Crate construction

Finished crates leave our factory floor cut, nailed and ISPM-15 heat-treated when the consignment is bound for export through Paradip. Typical specifications for the cargo profiles moving through the port:

Pallets

Standard four-way entry pallets in 1200 x 1000 mm and 1200 x 800 mm (Euro), with custom sizes for fertilizer bagging lines and refinery part runs. Block pallets or stringer pallets, depending on whether the loading bay uses pallet jacks or forklifts. All export pallets are ISPM-15 treated and stamped on request.

Container flooring

Apitong-substitute container flooring stock — 28 mm phenolic-bonded ply, 2400 x 1160 mm planks — for trailer rebuilds and reefer / dry-van refurbishment work coming through the port-side transport workshops. Less common as a line item than crates, but a steady niche.

Logistics

The Kochi-to-Paradip lane

The lane is long but well-trodden. Distance from the Perumbavoor manufacturing belt to Paradip Port is roughly 1,800 km by road via NH-66 / NH-16 — the east-coast highway through the Bengaluru bypass, Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam and Bhubaneswar. Typical transit:

• FTL truck (20 ft / 32 ft body): 4–5 days door-to-door, weather permitting
• Container (FCL via Cochin Port to Paradip): coastal feeder routing, 7–10 days door-to-door — slower but useful for high-volume single-buyer despatches
• Part-load (LCL trucking): 5–7 days, consolidation in Bengaluru or Hyderabad

For most plywood-only consignments under 12 tonnes we recommend FTL trucking — pricing is predictable, handling damage is lower, and ISPM-15 stamped crates clear pre-shipment inspection without container demurrage risk. For project-cargo lots where the buyer wants to stage stock at Paradip for a multi-month shutdown, FCL coastal containers from Cochin Port make sense.

Choosing a grade

Which grade for which Paradip load

Three rough buckets cover most of what we send east:

Packing-grade ply (commercial face)

The default for fertilizer industry buyers, general-engineering crates and pallet manufacturers. Cost-effective, kiln-conditioned, glues and nails well, holds a 1.5-tonne unit load over a 1200 x 1000 mm pallet without bowing. This is what 70–80% of Paradip-bound orders ship as.

Okoume face on MR or BWR

For petrochem, refinery spares, instrumentation and export-bound consignments. The smoother face takes branding stencils cleanly, weighs slightly less per sheet, and the BWR variant tolerates the Paradip-monsoon transhipment window better than MR. Specify Okoume when the buyer asks for "exportable presentation" or when the cargo will sit at the port for more than two weeks.

Shuttering ply

For Paradip's infrastructure side — jetty extensions, refinery civil works, fertilizer plant expansions, township construction — film-faced shuttering plywood (12 mm, 18 mm) is the standard. Reusable for 8–15 pours depending on care. Order in 20-ft container loads to make the trucking lane economical.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Do you supply ISPM-15 stamped crates for Paradip export consignments?

Yes. All export-bound crates are heat-treated at registered facilities and carry the IPPC stamp. Documentation is shared with the cargo invoice. Useful for petrochem spares re-exports, fertilizer machinery returns and steel-product shipments out of Paradip.

Can you cut plywood to my crate sizes before despatch?

Yes — sheet ripping and panel cutting to buyer-specified dimensions are part of the standard offer. Most fertilizer and petrochem case-makers in the Paradip belt prefer pre-cut panels because it removes on-site cutting labour and waste. Send the cut-list with the PO.

What's the minimum order quantity for a Kochi-to-Paradip truck?

An FTL load is roughly 8–10 tonnes (around 600–800 sheets of 18 mm packing ply, or a mixed load of crates and pallets). We do consolidate smaller orders into LCL movements, but FTL pricing per sq.ft. lands cheaper once you cross the half-truck mark — worth aggregating quarterly orders.

Get a quote

Asking for a quote

Our group has manufactured plywood in Perumbavoor since 1986 — about forty years of group operations on this lane, with CWI Pvt Ltd as the more recent corporate entity handling pan-India industrial buyers. We service Paradip's fertilizer, petrochem, project-cargo and port-side packaging sectors with packing-grade plywood, Okoume-faced BWR, shuttering ply, finished crates, ISPM-15 pallets and container flooring stock. To get a worked-up quote with the right grade, sizes and trucking-lane economics for your monthly volume, request a quote with your cut-list and despatch frequency. For grade reference, packing-case specifications and ISPM-15 detail, our resource hub carries the technical guides.