India Steamship lines up Rs 315 cr investment

Kolkata-based India Steamship, a K K Birla group company, is planning an additional investment of Rs 315 crore to expand its tanker fleet.

The company, now part of Chambal Fertilisers and Chemicals, had announced an investment of around Rs 917 crore for doubling its fleet of tankers in 2006.

C S Nopany, grandson of K K Birla, heading the shipping division of the group, said the company was planning to acquire a new tanker.

"We are looking for a good tanker from the second-hand market. It is likely to cost anything between Rs 250 and Rs 300 crore. Our plan is to invest up to Rs 315 crore," he said.

According to him, India Steamship has targeted to achieve a capacity of 7 lakh tonne over the next two-three years. The company currently has a capacity of close to 3,00,000 tonne.

Nopany said the company had already acquired one ship from a Greek company in mid-2006, which had taken the capacity to 3 lakh tonne.

India Steamship earlier had three single hull tankers. Two tankers have a capacity of 96,000 tonne each and the third a capacity of 60,000 tonne.

Nopany informed that the Ulsan-based Hyundai Heavy Industries of South Korea was manufacturing three state-of-the-art tankers for the company, for which the MoU was signed in March 2006 .

"These two ships would be delivered sometime in the latter half of 2008. Each new tanker would have a capacity of 1.05 lakh tonne. With the addition of these three tankers, our current capacity will go up to 6 lakh tonne from the present 3 lakh tonne," he said.

According to him, with the addition of new tankers, India Steamship is targeting Rs 200 crore turnover from the current Rs 125 crore.

Commenting on the fleet expansion, Nopany said with refining capacities increasing worldwide, and in the country, petroleum products would move in much larger parcel sizes.