Major cash buyer Best Oasis Ltd (BOL) has set up a Piraeus office dedicated to servicing the Greek market.
Alang-based BOL, a unit of Indian shiprecycler Priya Blue Industries, has chosen Yiannis Kourkoulis to man the new Greek branch, which began operations on 30 July.
“BOL has been expanding for quite some time and we thought it was a very good time to do so in Greece as well,” said Kourkoulis, a former sale-and-purchase broker at URSA Shipbrokers.
BOL, which also has offices in Hong Kong, Hamburg and Dubai, already has Greek players among its clients.
Deals with local shipowners have usually been arranged with the help of outside brokers or through direct contacts. Such established relations will continue, with Kourkoulis’ job being to facilitate and speed up the flow of communication between the parties involved.
“Our core intention is to be closer to the Greek shipping market so as to grow the reach of our business,” BOL said in a statement. Rival cash buyer GMS also has an office in Athens.
Priya Blue is among three Indian yards that have applied to join a list of European Union-approved shiprecyclers, which would allow them to handle demolition of EU-flagged vessels.
However, its application has still not been cleared by the European Commission, the EU’s executive body tasked with certifying yards outside the 28-country bloc.
