Dry CargoEurope

Augustea to invest $70m in new Pakistan coal transhipment project

Augustea Group of Italy will be the maritime branch of a new project soon to be launched by China Power International Holding that will lead to the construction of two new energy plants in Hub, Pakistan. The $2bn project will be located on the coastline of the Arabian Sea in western Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. The plant will be the biggest electricity project in the province and falls under the banner of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The project envisions two power plant salong with a dedicated coal import jetty terminal to provide approximately 4m tons of coal per year coming from South Africa, Indonesia, Australia or Colombia using capesize and panamax bulk carriers. For the final delivery of the dry bulk cargo to the plants a transhipment facility will be developed in order to unload the coal from the ships and to load it onto 12,000 dwt barges towed by two tugs.

“We at Augustea will be in charge for studying and applying all the logistics aspects of the project,” Raffaele Zagari, CEO of Augustea, told Splash. “For this purpose a 2010-built post-panamax bulk carrier has just been purchased and will be converted to a floating transhipment terminal in the coming months. Three tugs and two barges are also soon to be ordered in China with delivery scheduled in 2019 when the project will have to be ready for the start-up phase.”

The project is a joint-venture between China Power International Holding, a core subsidiary of the State Power Investment Corporation (one of the top five state-owned power generation corporations in China), and The Hub Power Company Limited, the largest independent power producer in Pakistan.

Augustea will invest some $70m for the vessels required and the revenues expected for the Italian shipping group amount to $300m over 15 years.

Nicola Capuzzo

Nicola is a highly qualified journalist focused on transport economics, logistics and shipping with broad experience in both online and printed media. Specialties: shipping, ship finance, banking, commodities and port economics. He regularly interviews Europe's top shipowner executives for Maritime CEO magazine.
Back to top button