Kuwaiti Tanker Fleet Set For Nine-Vessel Expansion In 2014-15
State-owned Kuwait Oil Tanker Company (KOTC) is expecting the delivery of nine new tankers from South Korean firms by mid-2015 as part of a $1.75bn fleet expansion announced earlier this year, the company�s newly appointed chairman said on 1 August. This comes on the back of a year in which the company was operating at 95.8% of capacity � a rate he believes will continue to rise.
�It is expected that we will receive all of the nine tankers during the fiscal year 2014-15,� KOTC�s Badr al-Khashti told Kuwaiti daily Al-Rai, naming the South Korean firms involved as Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering and Hyundai Mipo Dockyard. The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) shipping arm will receive five crude oil tankers from Daewoo: four will be double-hulled VLCCs, each with a capacity of 320,000 dwt; and one will be an Aframax product tanker with a capacity of 100,000 dwt. From Hyundai, KOTC will get four petroleum products tankers, each with a capacity of 50,000 dwt. Daewoo has also been contracted to carry out upgrades to four of KOTC�s existing fleet.
This delivery will represent the third phase of Kuwait�s tanker fleet expansion, which KOTC has said will end in 2014-15. The first phase of the company�s expansion took place between 2004 and 2008, during which it took delivery of five VLCCs from companies in South Korea, Singapore and Bahrain. The second phase, falling between 2008 and 2014, saw the delivery of two more VLCCs in June and October 2011, and two products tankers in February and April 2012.
The fourth and last stage of KOTC�s fleet expansion, Mr Khashti said, will take place between 2014 and 2018 and should see the purchase of five additional double-hulled 50,000 dwt petroleum product tankers, and three liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers, each with a capacity of 58,000 dwt. This will bring KOTC�s fleet to 31 vessels by 2018, following the removal from service of six obsolete tankers, he went on to say. The total cost of phases three and four of the company�s expansion will reach KD493.5m ($1.75bn).
Copyright MEES 2012.
