Three Indonesian transshipment players have bolstered their fleets after the closure of Coeclerici Logistics — and Brazil's Vale looks to be the only big loser in the deal.
Indonesian owners Asian Bulk Logistics (ABL) and Transcoal Pacific as well as Italian-Indonesian company Rocktree Logistics have emerged as the buyers of seven transshipment vessels, which were the historic Italian company’s last remaining tonnage. The Coeclerici Logistics team has set up under the name of Shield Services.
The sales, which closed in the autumn, covered Coeclerici Logistics' floating transfer stations (FTSs), self-discharging ships and all of its remaining contracts.
Paolo Clerici managed to exit without losing his substantial investments, thanks largely to a compensation payment by former customer Vale after the termination of a big mining operation in Mozambique
Sources attributed the winding-up to owner Paolo Clerici's desire to concentrate on a more conservative portfolio.
They added he had managed to exit without losing his substantial investments, thanks largely to a compensation payment by former customer Vale after the termination of a big mining operation in Mozambique.
Active trader
Coeclerici remains active as a trader and is the owner and operator of a Siberian coal mine and other unrelated onshore enterprises.
All three buyers are established players in the rivers and offshore anchorages of Kalimantan — the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo — with tugs, barges, self-unloaders and specially designed transshippers.
Transcoal is an offshoot of mine owner Kaltim Prima Coal, which listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange in the summer via an initial public offering.
It bought the small stationary 5,500-dwt Bulk Pioneer (built 2003) for its own needs.
ABL and Rocktree are independent of their mining and trading customers.
Of four units going to ABL, only the 11,400-dwt Bulk Celebes (built 2013) is a self-propelled ship. The 11,800-dwt Bulk Java (built 2011), Bulk Borneo (built 2012) and Bulk Sumatra (built 2013) are stationary units.
An ABL representative could not be reached for comment before TradeWinds went to press.
Vale vessels
Rocktree has acquired the two most expensive former Coeclerici ships, which were built at Jiangsu Hantong Heavy Industry to meet Vale's needs in Mozambique.
The 53,700-dwt Bulk Limpopo (built 2012) and Bulk Zambesi (built 2011), which were capable of transferring up to 5,500 tonnes per hour, are now understood to be undergoing modifications at a Batam Island shipyard.
Rocktree is expected to deploy the two ships — renamed RT Genova and RT Leo, respectively — in operations off East Kalimantan. They will boost Rocktree's fleet substantially.
Rocktree was formerly Scorpio Logistics, whose chief executive Alfredo Pratolongo bought Emanuele Lauro's stake in the business several years ago.
With Indonesian partners, it now operates a fleet of tugs and barges serving the transshipment trades and has one self-discharging panamax bulker — the 64,800-dwt Mara (ex Mara Lolli-Ghetti, built 1989, converted 2008) — already stationed off East Kalimantan, as well as two crane ships.
The panamax and pair of crane ships have a daily transshipment capacity of 60,000 tonnes and 40,000 tonnes respectively, while the RT Genova and RT Leo will be able to load 72,000 tonnes per day.
Singapore-based Rocktree could not immediately be reached for comment.
Produced and abandoned
Rocktree's new ships are described by shipping databases as self-unloading supramax bulkers. But their original price tag of $120m enbloc, well beyond the supramax bulker range, reflects their tailoring to serve Vale's 20-year, 11-million-tonne-per-annum contract serving the Moatize mining project at Beira, Mozambique.
Special depth and channel restrictions at Beira meant cargo had to be shuttled to capesizes at a deep-water anchorage
Special depth and channel restrictions at Beira meant cargo had to be shuttled to capesizes at a deep-water anchorage.
Operations at Beira turned out to be so unprofitable that sources said Vale was forced to give up and ship coal through Nacala, nearly 500 nautical miles (926 kilometres) to the north, a deep port with capesize berths in the inner harbour.
In 2017, Vale took on Japan's Mitsui Corp as a fellow investor in its new Nacala Logistics Corridor with purpose-built rail connections from Vale's coal mines in Mozambique and Malawi.
In January, it terminated the Beira transshipment operation. That meant not only compensating Coeclerici for the remaining contract term until the end of 2031 but also buying back the ships at a contractually specified price that reflected Coeclerici's investment.
Vale then sold them on to Rocktree for an undisclosed but much lower price. The figures do not appear in recent Vale financial filings, and Vale representatives did not respond to enquiries before TradeWinds went to press.
Old transshipment hands
Rocktree will manage its bargain acquisitions but the ABL and Transcoal tonnage will remain in the hands of the former Coeclerici Logistics technical team.
Former Coeclerici transshipment executive Corrodo Cuccurullo has taken the managing director role in Shield Services, which Coeclerici helped set up, and he is optimistic about expanding their business further.
Shield will be doing management, ship design and conversion projects, and is looking at new customers in Indonesia, Vietnam and New Zealand.
“We can design as well as operate these kinds of vessels because we took out from Coeclerici all the design and technical know-how,” Cuccurullo told TradeWinds.
Shield is also working on a supramax conversion for a French shipowner and expects that job to begin by the end of the year at Chengxi Shipyard.
