State-owned Shipping Corporation of India on Monday said it would float global tenders for acquiring 30 ships by 2012, which is likely to entail a Rs 80 billion (Rs 8,000 crore) investment.
The company also plans to diversify and enter into areas like ship-building to become a full-fledged maritime player from a shipping company at present.
"We have on order over 30 vessels and we will order another about 30 by 2012, which would be for about Rs 8,000 crore," SCI Chairman and Managing Director S Hajara told reporters on the sidelines of a summit on infrastructure organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce.
SCI at present owns 76 ships of 5.1 million Deadweight Tonnage, besides manning 60 vessels of 0.2 million tonnes DWT.
It plans to take its capacity to 12 million DWT in the next two years by acquiring these 30 vessels. DWT is the total weight of the ship, including the cargo, crew and fuel.
Hajara said the company would float global tenders for acquiring the vessels soon and there was a likelihood of these ships being built in South Korea and China.
"Most likely places where these ships will be built will be South Korea, followed by China. South Korea is the world's leading shipbuilder, followed by China. China hopes to overtake them by three to five years. We are going to float global tenders," he said.
He said the company had planned to acquire 62 ships during the 11th Five Year Plan (2007-12) period for about Rs 13.5 billion (Rs 13,500 crore).
Stressing that the Indian shipping industry is doing quite well, he said the SCI plans to diversify and become a maritime player instead of a mere shipping company.
"We would like to diversify into terminal management, even in shipbuilding... these are the areas which are of interest to us. We would like to be a full-fledged maritime player and logistic solution provider," Hajara said.
He, however, did not give any timeframe for this. SCI recently concluded a joint venture with the country's largest steel maker, SAIL, for the import of coking coal and is holding discussions with ONGC for offshore activities.
"We are in discussion (with ONGC)... there has not been much progress. The SAIL-SCI joint venture has already been registered... This is a JV particularly for import of coking coal, because SAIL is going to require substantial increase in import of coking coal as they are expanding their capacity phenomenally," Hajara said.
Steel Authority of India Ltd has undertaken a capacity augmentation programme to expand from around 14 million tonnes at present to 23 million tonnes in the next two years at a cost of about Rs 700 billion (Rs 70,000 crore).
