Entering the bunkering business in India, Aegis Group is confident of causing a turnaround
Bunkering in India, traditionally a monopoly of government owned companies such as Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum, Hindustan Petroleum, etc., is seeing private operators making entry with plans to divert much of the business from the neighboring overseas ports in a big way.
However, when Chemoil joined forces with Adani Enterprises and opened bunkering business little over a year ago the incident passed off almost unnoticed. But now another major player Aegis Group has secured the approval from the Director General of Shipping and launched its Marine Products Division with plans to make a spectacular entry into the business clearly indicating the vast scope and the transformation likely to take place in this field.
According to a shipping analyst, the Indian government has taken keen interest in the development of the country’s bunker market, with indication of further tax exemptions for international vessels. Introducing tax reductions, developing the port infrastructure and offering consistently competitive fuel prices is already proving to be beneficial for the trade.
Some of the recent developments that have been taking place include the introduction of more high capacity barges; 380 cSt fuel is now available at all major Indian ports; fuels complying with ISO8217:2005 and Marpol Annex VI; and the once conventional method of supply by truck is being replaced slowly by world-class infrastructure incorporating pipeline, barge and onshore storage capacity. The availability of support-services for ship supplies, such as spares, also continues to get better.
Aegis has 2 operating terminals in Mumbai, 1 in Kochi and 1 in Pipavav (Gujarat). In Mumbai, Aegis owns and operates a state-of-the-art 20,000 MT refrigerated Gas Terminal, through which it has been importing, marketing and distributing annually about 400,000 MT of bulk LPG and Propane to many customers in the Western Region including the NOC’s, apart from retailing its branded “Aegis Autogas” through its ALDS.
“We are the largest importers of gas into India totaling 1 billion tonnes per annum,” said Anish Chandaria, Managing Director & CEO of Aegis Logistics Limited. “Since we have the infrastructure at the ports we decided on diversifying and supplying fuel for the ships coming into the ports ourselves. At the moment we are going to start supplying bunker at Mumbai port. Next we will also supply from Kochi port in South India and later at Pipavav and Haldia ports.”
In Singapore, Aegis has a subsidiary supplying bunker to a large number of their clients. But the typical work is done in India. Aegis is targeting large volume for 2012 – 13 in India and is confident of achieving over $ 100 million turnover.
“We can prove to be more attractive than Singapore,” assures Mr Chandaria. “The scope for bunkering is immense because India is on the map for ships. Even today many ships from China go via Sri Lanka that is because the ports here are underdeveloped and problem of demurrage, etc still exist. But at Pipavav we can actually offer good terms to ships if they pick up bunkers from India. We are confident of making that turnaround and eventual make a break-through in bunkering.”
The Marine Products Division aims to provide complete solution to the marine community which would include extensive range of bunker fuels, marine lubricants and technical services at various ports. “We are delighted to leverage our unique strength of extensive tankages across many ports to offer world class fuels and bunkers to shipping industry which takes care of their main concerns around quality, safety and timely delivery which is so critical to this industry” said Mr. Rajiv Chohan, President – Business Development.