Our Bureau

Mumbai , Aug. 11

VARUN Shipping on Thursday announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, VSC International Pte Ltd, Singapore, has signed memorandum of agreements for acquisition of three 1991-built LPG carriers.

All the vessels will be delivered between August and November.

With these acquisitions, the group's investment during the current fiscal will be about Rs 1,000 crore. This is part of the company's capital expenditure programme of between $80 million and $90 million to be implemented in the next 6-8 months.

The company now has a fleet strength of 16, including the recent delivery of its second Aframax tanker.

After the acquisition of its eighth LPG carrier in the last quarter, the company now owns 71 per cent of the total LPG tonnage under the Indian flag.

In another shift in operations, the company for the first time joined a global shipping pool. It placed its first Aframax tanker in the Sigma shipping pool and is likely to follow it up with its second Aframax.

"Joining the shipping pool gets us better freight rates as the pool has strong contacts with the global oil majors. Moreover, by efficiently deploying the vessels in the pool, it gets operational advantages like minimum ballast (or idle) time," an official of the company pointed out.

The Sigma shipping pool operates its ships in "profitable geographical areas" such as Carribean, Atlantic and the UK.

Varun Shipping has also initiated foray into LNG transportation by picking up stake in a consortium led by Exmar NV of Belgium, with Indian Oil Corporation as another partner, to bid for Petronet LNG's project. Petronet will require two-four vessels to transport five million tonnes of LNG per annum for its Dahej terminal and another 2.5 million tonnes for its Kochi terminal.

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