Pakistan National Shipping Corporation (PNSC) is going to scrap its two bulk carriers namely M.V. Sargodha and M.V Multan soon, which will leave the corporation with the fleet of 7 vessels.
Official sources informed Profit that the current administration of the corporation under the chairmanship of Vice Admiral (Retd.) Aslam Ahmed Meenai has surprisingly decided to scrap both the bulk carriers without any plausible reason. “Both the Japanese bulk carriers were manufactured in 1980s, and could be utilised with proper maintenance as some carriers manufactured in 1970s are still in use as cement loaders in many parts of the world, therefore, this decision of scraping two important vessels by the corporation is not rational,” sources added. After selling the scrap of these two bulk carriers the corporation would be left with 7 vessels (3 tankers and 4 bulk carriers), which is a bad omen for the corporation that witnessed their profits surging by 280 per cent in the last year, sources said.
Therefore the sources claimed that the fleet reduction is not being done for capital increase since the corporation is already in profit while they still have to repay a previous loan of $20 million leftover by the previous administration. The previous administration took a loan of total $130 million to finance six new vessels with $110 million. Intriguingly though instead of increasing the fleet to ensure more profitability the Shipping Corporation is reducing its fleet, sources claimed.
Both the bulk carriers would be sold in $3 million each to the scrap industry, which means that they will only have $6 million to add to the finances of the company at the cost of usable vessels, sources reasoned. A new vessel of the same capacity is available in $15 million, which would prove to be very expensive, the source added. Ironically, chairman of the corporation in his message claims that ‘undoubtedly we are endeavoring to enhance our business operations. We will continue to seek expansion of our fleet and other related services,’ and now it is clear that they are actually reducing the fleet, sources said.
It is to be noted that the previous chairman of PNSC vowed in writing that the fleet would always have 11 vessels at any cost, but this has not been the case at all.
