Arcelor Mittal Nippon Steel India set to expand shipping fleet

MUMBAI: Arcelor Mittal Nippon Steel India Ltd (AM/NS India) will expand its Indian flagged fleet as the steel maker jointly owned by ArcelorMittal and Nippon Steel seeks to secure supply chain in the face of a shortage of Indian registered ships in the market to ferry cargo on local routes, the Company’s Head of Shipping and Chartering was quoted assayingrecently.

AM/NS Shipping & Logistics Pvt Ltd, a wholly owned unt of AM/NS India, purchased two Kamsarmax ships last year to ferry cargo along the coast. It is close to buying two more ships from the second-hand market.

“BecauseoflessIndiantonnagein the market, we have bought two Kamsarmax vessels and further we are planning to increase our fleet,” AshutoshMathur,Head-Shipping& Chartering at AM/NS India, said in Mumbaion16June.

“We move around 12 million tonnes (mt) of cargo from India’s east coast to Hazira in Gujarat on the west coast where the principal production siteislocated.Wearealsodispatching 1 mt of steel by coastal route. We prefer Indian flag vessels but sadly not enough are available in the market and hence have to look for foreignflagvessels,”Mathursaid.

“For a steel plant, it is very important to secure the supply chain, right from the mines to the logistics and delivering to the customers doorstep,”hesaid.

AM/NS India requires some 200 ships a year to move cargo along the coast and the number is expected to go up as the steel plant expands capacityfrom8.6mt.

Advt“Wearelookingtoexpandthe fleet mostly in the handy size vessel segment. We have a lot of coastal cargo to move, we are taking a lot of foreignflagvesselsnow,”hesaid.

Chartering foreign flag vessels is not that easy because the country’s coastal trade is reserved for Indian registered ships under a so-called cabotage law and foreign flag ships can be hired only when Indian ships arenotavailableforthejob.

Russian oil to make up 30% of India’s imports

NEWDELHI:Russiamayaccount foralmostathirdofIndia’soilimports by the end of the current financial year, Arun Kumar Singh, the Head of India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp Ltd, was cited as saying on Saturday by RussiannewsagencyInterfax.

“The share of Russian oil imports, which was less than 2 per cent in 2021/2022, has increased tenfold to 20 per cent in the oil import basket,” Singh was quoted as saying at a St Petersburg International Economic

Forumpanel.

Thelevelmayreach30percentby the end of the 2023/24 financial year, he added. “Then, guaranteed trade between the two countries will grow even stronger and Russia will have a major role to play in ensuring India’s energysecurity.”

Interfax did not specify frames of the2023/24financialyear.

Russia has been redirecting its energy supplies from Western countries which have imposed restrictions and sanctions on trade with Moscow, including an oil price cap, after its invasion of Ukraine. China and India purchase most of the re-routedRussianenergy.

Russian crude oil imports by India, the world’s No. 3 crude importer, hit an all-time high in May as buyers gorged on discounted supplies, reducing demand for oil from the Middle East and Africa, according to preliminary assessmentsfromshiptrackers.