Pakistan National Shipping Corporation (PNSC) is
going to scrap its 2 bulk carriers namely M.V. Sargodha and M.V Multan soon,
which will leave the corporation with the fleet of 7 vessels.
Official sources informed Profit that the current
administration of the corporation under the chairmanship of Vice Admiral
(Retd.) Aslam Ahmed Meenai has surprisingly decided to scrap both the bulk
carriers without any plausible reason. “Both the Japanese bulk carriers were
manufactured in 1980s, and could be utilised with proper maintenance as some
carriers manufactured in 1970s are still in use as cement loaders in many parts
of the world, therefore, this decision of scraping two important vessels by the
corporation is not rational,” sources added. After selling the scrap of these
two bulk carriers the corporation would be left with 7 vessels (3 tankers and 4
bulk carriers), which is a bad omen for the corporation that witnessed their
profits surging by 280% in the last year, sources said.
Therefore the sources claimed that the fleet
reduction is not being done for capital increase since the corporation is
already in profit while they still have to repay a previous loan of $20 million
leftover by the previous administration. The previous administration took a loan
of total $130 million to finance 6 new vessels with $110 million. Intriguingly
though instead of increasing the fleet to ensure more profitability the
Shipping Corporation is reducing its fleet, sources claimed.
Both the bulk carriers would be sold in
$3 million each to the scrap industry,
which means that they will only have $6 million to add to the finances of the
company at the cost of usable vessels, sources reasoned. A new vessel of the
same capacity is available in $15 million, which would prove to be very
expensive, the source added. Ironically, chairman of the corporation in his
message claims that ‘undoubtedly we are endeavoring to enhance our business
operations. We will continue to seek expansion of our fleet and other related
services,’ and now it is clear that they are actually reducing the fleet,
sources said.
It is to be noted that the previous chairman of
PNSC vowed in writing that the fleet would always have 11 vessels at any cost,
but this has not been the case at all.
Source: Hellenic Shipping News (Sourced from Pakistan
http://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=51338:pnsc-disposing-two-vessels-without-plausible-reason&catid=44:latest-news&Itemid=64
No comments:
Post a Comment