Background The demand for electricity in India is particularly acute in the southwestern region. Consequently, to meet this demand the Government of India has initiated plans to build a thermal power plant near the coastal city of Kayamkulam. Ultimately, in the year 2005, this plant is to be capable of producing 1,936 mega-Watts of electricity. To achieve this output, 8 million tons of domestic coal, originating from the Talcher Coal Fields in the northeast of the country, must be delivered to Kayamkulam. Previous preliminary feasibility studies, which compared 2,000 km overland transport of coal by rail or slurry pipeline to transport of coal by coastal vessel, showed the latter method to be the most advantageous. Specifically, this will involve moving the coal by rail from the inland Talcher Coal Fields to the existing Port of Paradip on the northeastern coast. Here, it can be loaded into colliers to be transported south, around Sri Lanka and the Indian Cape Comorin, to a new unprotected offshore terminal along the southwestern coast near Kayamkulam. Objective Given the fact that the coastal transport of coal is more attractive than overland transport, this study had the objective to: "design, on the basis of operational and financial criteria, the optimum coastal transport chain configuration by which to move the ultimately required amount of coal from the Talcher Coal Fields to the new thermal power plant at Kayamkulam". Methodology To design the optimum coastal coal transport chain a "Five Task" methodology was developed and adopted. Tasks 1 and 2 comprised the identification of, and research on, the operational and financial design factors, respectively. In this regard, operational design factors are those which, collectively, determine the coal transporting capacity of the chain. They may be, for example, the size and number of colliers procured; or the downtime at a port due to inclement weather or the malfunction of equipment. Financial design factors are those which, together, determine the annual cost of a particular configuration. For instance, the length of the berths (which is dependent upon the size of the colliers) determines their annual costs. Task 3 constituted the conceptualization and programming of a computer simulation model. This mathematical tool was used to identify those transport chain configurations that would be operationally feasible, i.e. that could annually deliver the required 8 million tons to Kayamkulam. To program this computer simulation model use was made of the language PERSONAL PROSIM. The name CoalTran (Coal Transport) was aptly given to this model. Task 4 consisted of the application of the model CoalTran. In executing this task, a multitude of simulation runs were performed. However, before doing so a detailed experimental design was developed which ensured that the experimental simulation process would be as efficient as possible. In particular, the predominant design factors varied during the simulation runs were the (un)loading capacity per collier berth as well as the (un)loading capacity of the unit train berths. Finally, Task 5 involved calculating the annual costs of each of the operationally feasible transport chain configurations. Having done this, the configuration which displayed both satisfactory operational characteristics and low annual costs could be brought forward as the optimum from an operational and financial perspective. Conclusions In broad terms, the optimum coastal coal transport chain was determined to comprise the following: (1) two 5,000 tph train loading berths at Talcher; (2) a fleet of 14 diesel powered unit trains, each composed of bottom dump wagons and capable of transporting 6,750 tons; (3) two 5,000 tph train unloading berths at Paradip; (4) a four pile, four stacker/reclaimer, stockyard layout at Paradip with a storage capacity of 1,900,000 tons; (5) two 5,000 tph collier loading berths at Paradip; (6) a fleet of four 65,000 DWT conventional colliers; (7) one 3,000 tph collier unloading berth at Kayamkulam; (8) a three pile, two stacker/reclaimer, stockyard layout at Kayamkulam with a storage capacity of 600,000 tons.