The Ruias-owned Essar Shipping inducted its second mini-cape vessel, as part of its on-going $1-billion ship acquisition programme in the next two years. The new vessel is the second in the series of mini-cape bulk carriers that are being built for the company at STX Dalian shipyard — the remaining four will join the Essar fleet in the next four months.
The company, despite a stubborn slump in freight rates, is going ahead with its $1-billion acquisition programme, out of which $600 million is for 12 vessels to be delivered over the next 24 months and the rest for two jack-up rigs. The 12 vessels will together scale up the company's fleet strength to 2.6 million tonnes from the current 1.7 mt. The latest addition has a cargo carrying capacity of 1.05 lakh DWT. “The addition is in line with our strategy to acquire vessels that carry larger parcels at economic costs, suiting Indian port conditions. The ship has already been deployed to carry coal from Australia,” Mr A.R. Ramakrishnan, Managing Director, said.
This relatively new category of vessels, which is in between a cape size and supramax size ship, can be berthed at ports having relatively shallower drafts of about 13.7 metres, but with a higher cargo carrying capacity.
The Baltic Dry Index had touched an all time low of about 650 points in the first week of this month, as against an average of 1,923 in the third quarter of this fiscal.