AmericasTankers

Transpetro plans massive fleet selloff

Sao Paolo: Taking a leaf out of fellow Brazilian commodities giant Vale, Petrobras is studying a plan to sell off many of the ships run by subsidiary Transpetro and take them back on charter. According to Brazilian newspaper Jornal do Comércio, a plan has been put forward to shift 23 ships, roughly half the fleet owned by Transpetro under a sales and leaseback model. Transpetro’s diverse tanker fleet includes crude, gas and products.

The idea mirrors what Vale has done with its slew of VLOCs in the past couple of years. Murilo Ferreira was the man at Vale who made the move to offload the VLOCs, dubbed valemaxes. He is now the president of the board of directors at Petrobras. The sale could raise around $270m, the newspaper reported.

An announcement is likely in July.

Hit hard by a massive corruption scandal that has run into billions of dollars, Petrobras is having to look at every aspect of its operations to make savings.

A source told Splash that China’s CDB Leasing would likely be involved in the sale. Chinese parties have been to the fore in snapping up Vale’s fleet of valemaxes too.

Sam Chambers

Starting out with the Informa Group in 2000 in Hong Kong, Sam Chambers became editor of Maritime Asia magazine as well as East Asia Editor for the world’s oldest newspaper, Lloyd’s List. In 2005 he pursued a freelance career and wrote for a variety of titles including taking on the role of Asia Editor at Seatrade magazine and China correspondent for Supply Chain Asia. His work has also appeared in The Economist, The New York Times, The Sunday Times and The International Herald Tribune.
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