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Santanu Sanyal

Kolkata, May 20 Mercator Lines has before it a proposal for acquiring more oil rigs.

“We are already having one jack-up rig built at Keppel in Singapore and we’re considering more acquisitions, preferably by way of outright purchase,” Mr H.K. Mittal, Executive Chairman of the company, told Business Line.

“To have a new rig built in a yard will take at least three years, an option which perhaps can be dispensed with in favour of outright purchase of newly-built readily available in the market.”

As he felt, there might be no dearth of newly-built equipment for immediate acquisition but only at a price. “In-chartering of old equipment is not so much in our view, but then, we’re exploring the market and keeping our options open,” Mr Mittal observed.

He, however, made it clear that the company had no immediate plans to acquire OSVs (offshore supply vessels) or MSVs (multi-purpose supply vessels) required by the oil sector.

“Our priority is clear: we’ll go for high value large assets,” he added.

The growing Indian oil sector, as Mr Mittal pointed out, was holding out promise. “But that does not mean that our proposed acquisitions will be deployed only in India,” he said, adding, “whosoever, anywhere in the world, gives the best price will get our equipment”.

The jack-up rig being built in Singapore will be delivered in March 2009 and will cost $190 million and its deployment has already been firmed up for three years.

Mercator Lines, as the Chairman pointed out, was essentially a shipping firm, the second largest private sector shipping company in the country, with a diversified fleet comprising 20 vessels, including nine tankers (total tonnage 1.04 million dwt), eight bulk carriers (0.61 million dwt) and three dredgers (combined capacity 20,000 cbm).

The company’s acquisition of dredgers is a recent development and all the three dredgers have been placed with the Dredging Corporation of India for employment.

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