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Mr S. Hajara

Our Bureau

New Delhi, Aug. 14 Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) expects to firm up its plans for setting up joint venture(s) for ship-building by this year-end. SCI is in talks with various companies for setting up the shipyard(s) in India, said the SCI Chairman, Mr S. Hajara, in a conference here. He declined to share any further details on the joint venture.

“We expect to firm up our plans for setting up one-two shipyards by December this year. The partner could be Indian or foreign,” Mr Hajara said.

The Shipping Ministry has been working on a proposal to set up a shipyard each in the east and west coast of the country, in which SCI has evinced interest. The shipbuilding plans that SCI hopes to firm up by December are, however, independent of the Shipping Ministry’s proposed shipyards.

SCI signed the contract with STX Shipyard for acquisition of four Panamax bulk carriers for $238.2 million on Wednesday.With this SCI currently has an order-book of 32 vessels of 2.63 million dead weight tonnage (DWT) with an investment of $1.8 billion.

“This capacity is over 50 per cent share of the current fleet size of SCI (4.8 million DWT),” said Mr Hajara. The ships would be delivered between 2008 and 2012.

“We would receive three ships in October 2008, two in 2009, 15 in 2010, six in 2011 and six in 2012,” Mr U.C. Grover, Director (Technical), SCI, said. Further there could be more deliveries in 2011-12, based on orders which are currently being processed.

According to the Five-year Plan, over the next two and a half years, SCI would be procuring 40 vessels for $2.5-3 billion. SCI is also processing a tender for acquiring four capsize vessels of 1,75,000-1,80,000 DWT capacity. About five-six international shipyards from countries, including China and Korea have put in their bids for the tender.

SCI is also focusing on the offshore sector. “As drilling becomes deeper and farther from the cost, demand for supporting marine services is expected to grow,” Mr Hajara said. The public sector enterprise, which was recently conferred Navratna status, also plans to set up a joint venture with ONGC for serving the offshore sector.

Other areas where SCI aims to diversify include inland container depot and container freight stations, container terminal operations and dredging.

More Stories on : Alliances & Joint Ventures | Shipping/Ports | Shipping Corporation of India Ltd

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