Abu Dhabi-based ports and shipping conglomerate AD Ports Group has spent a combined total of AED 955m ($260m) on the purchase of five bulk carriers and three crude oil tankers.
The company, which announced the acquisitions on Monday, said these vessel purchases were made in conjunction with its recently signed bulker and tanker partnerships with Bangladesh’s Saif Powetec and Kazmortransflot, a subsidiary of the Kazakh National Oil Company, also known as KazMunayGas.
No details were given on the identities of the ships that have been purchased, nor their size or age.
However, previous announcements made at the time these partnerships were made suggest that the deals will have involved supramax bulkers and aframax tankers.
First announced in April 2022, AD Ports’ partnership with Saif Powertec is part of a 15-year trade facilitation and shipping agreement that sees AD Ports shipping arm Safeen provide eight supramax bulk carriers on bareboat and time charters to a jointly owned and operated bulk shipping services company.
AD Ports, via Safeen, acquired three supramax bulkers shortly after the agreement was announced, and the addition of the latest five brings the number of vessels to the required eight.
The five new bulkers are being purchased for AED 459m, the company said.
The supramaxes will initially carry cargoes from ports in the UAE to the ports of Chattogram and Mongla in Bangladesh, but the venture will also oversee cargo operations to the Indian subcontinent, South East Asia and other global destinations.
The purchase of three crude oil tankers, with a total transaction value of AED 496 million, will form part of the seven-year vessel pooling agreement formed in December 2022 with KazMorTransFlot for the transport of crude oil internationally.
Safeen has one aframax tanker, the 105,300-dwt Safeen Baroness (built 2011) that was acquired from Greece’s NGM Energy in August last year, while Kazmortransflot’s tanker fleet includes aframaxes that trade worldwide.
Commenting on the vessel acquisitions, AD Ports’ managing director and group CEO Captain Mohamed Juma Al Shamisi, described this latest extension of the company’s fleet as “a remarkable milestone for our maritime cluster and will further enable us to equip our business with the right assets and logistics capabilities to adapt to the evolving global demand within the industries in which we operate”.
“More importantly, the vessel acquisitions are part of a larger expansion strategy by our group aimed at broadening our portfolio of services and taking our experience and service excellence to the wider bulk shipping and offshore oil markets,” he added.
AD Ports highlighted that as part of its strategic partnership agreement with KazMunayGas, the two companies will review opportunities to collaborate on a broad range of projects, including the development of a new fleet of shallow-water vessels to support offshore operations in the Caspian Sea and the development of a tanker fleet to support the export of Kazakh oil.
The partnership with Saif Powertec has also seen the establishment of a container feeder service to Bangladesh run by Safeen Feeders, with the two companies pledging to work closely together “to facilitate global trade and cargo services” over a period of 15 years.
