Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) plans to spend
Rs 1,939 crore during 2013-14, far less than Rs 2,497 crore spent in 2012-13, Union budget documents shows.
The investment would be financed through internal and extra budgetary resources. Sunil Thapar, director-bulk and tanker division, SCI said the company wants to consolidate its cash as it has enough deliveries in the pipeline. It is not thinking about placing any new order this year, he said.
The company decided to reduce its investment by around 22 per cent in 2013-14 also because of the slowdown in the shipping sector.
The amount would be used for purchase of vessels during the coming year. Around 17 ships are still to be delivered to SCI, of which delivery of at least four to five are expected in 2013-14.
Given the oversupply situation in the global shipping industry, SCI is not going to place any new orders or acquire any existing vessels from the market this year.
The company recently took the delivery of 120 tonne bollard pull capacity Anchor Handling, Towing & Supply (AHTS) vessel “m.v. SCI Urja”. This brought the overall fleet size of country’s largest shipping company to 80 vessels with a capacity of 5.91 million dead weight tonnage.
During 2012-13, the state-run firm took delivery of eleven vessels and disposed off five old vessels. As a result of both these activities, the average age of its fleet is now around 10 years.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.