Headquartered in Italy, with partners in Russia and new plans to increase business in Asia. That’s the Palermo-based Barbaro Group in brief, a company active in the field of transportation of crude and oil products, shipmanagement, offshore/FSO, shipping agency, towing and other harbour services.
In the recent past the company controlled by the Barbaro family was the first Italian shipping firm to penetrate the Russian shipping market operating a fleet of river tanker vessels and resulting today in several partnerships launched with some of the leading local companies.
Federica Barbaro, ceo of the company, summarises the company’s plans, saying: “While consolidated relationships with oil majors and other our clients continue to drive our business, we’re focusing on developing new projects via joint venture with Rosneft, one of the biggest and most important oil companies in the world. We are now actively involved in a start-up of our new joint venture with them which is aimed to strengthen Rosneft’s position in shipping, bunkering, brokering and other activities.”
As of today PB Tankers, the shipping arm active in the liquid bulk, currently owns and operates six double hull product tankers plus two chartered-in vessels and manages a FSO vessel called Alba Marine for Edison Group in the Adriatic Sea.
Apart from the last jv signed with Rosneft last year, in 2015 Barbaro also started a new important partnership for Prime Shipping, its Russian subsidiary for sea-river transportation, through the creation of a Russia-based joint venture between Rosneft and also Sberbank Investments.
“We are actively collaborating with our Russian as well as other partners at developing new joint projects and programs,” continues Barbaro revealing an interest in the Asian market as part of the company’s next strategies.
“Probably, as many other shipowners in the current moment, we are cautious about the high tonnage in the market compared to a fairly low demand. We also note a long lasting difficult situation in the newbuildings market. Hopefully the Far East area gives positive signals to the market and demonstrates signs of growth; we will be happy to increase our collaboration in that area,” says Barbaro.
Nevertheless, Barbaro’s sentiment on the shipping market seems to be prudent. “We deem that the trend for liquid and bulk market will remain, in any case, low for the coming period. We all know that oil and the oil transportation markets may be subject to unpredictable phenomena but let’s be positive and follow our passion for shipping,” she concludes.
