Garware Shipping to acquire 3 vessels

Offshore supply vessels (OSV) service company Garware Shipping Corporation is planning to acquire three Platform Supply Vessels (PSV) at the cost of Rs 275 crore. These vessels would be deployed to support offshore oil and gas exploration activities.

"We have already signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Solstad Shipping, a Norwegian company, for a PSV at the cost of Rs 81.50 crore. The company has been sanctioned and disbursed loan of Rs 64 crore from ICICI of UK for the new PSV," said Garware Shipping Director and executive vice-chairman Aditya Garware.

He added that the vessel, a state-of-the-art-technology UT 755, is expected to be delievered by November and would be re-named MV Everest. The normal working life of these vessels are 25-30 years.

Meawhile, the company is in dialogue with banks for tying up financial arrangements to acquire two more PSVs. Officials of the company said it is in talks with United Bank of India, State Bank of India and Export Import Bank of India to tie-up necessary funds for acquistion.

"The company is in talks with a Norwegian Shipyard to acquire two PSVs at the cost of Rs 95 each. The delivery of these two vessels are expected to be at October 2006 and April 2007 respectively," they said.

Recently, Garware Shipping has sold one of its vessels to fund acquisition plan.

Currently, the company is having four PSVs. According to shipping industry analysts, the acquisition of these two vessels would fall at the time of OSVs contract renewal of Oil and Natural Gas Corportaion of India (ONGC).