KazMunayGas, AD Ports JV to receive three tankers in 2023
ASTANA. Sept 6 (Interfax) - Caspian Integrated Maritime Solutions Ltd. (CIMS), a joint venture between KazMorTransFlot, a wholly owned subsidiary of Kazakh national oil and gas company KazMunayGas (KMG) and AD Ports Group from the United Arab Emirates, will receive three tankers by the end of this year and will increase its fleet to ten tankers in the future, KMG CEO Magzum Mirzagaliyev said.
"At the moment, we have four tankers: two of them belong to us and the other two are owned by Abu Dhabi Ports [AD Ports Group]. Of course, we have plans to beef up our fleet of tankers. We plan to increase the fleet of the joint venture to seven tankers this year and to ten tankers in the future," Mirzagaliyev told journalists on Wednesday.
National Maritime Shipping Company KazMorTransFlot LLP, a subsidiary of KMG, and Abu Dhabi Ports established the joint venture, Caspian Integrated Maritime Solutions (CIMS). CIMS was registered by the Astana International Financial Center on February 13, 2023.
In July of this year, CIMS received two new tankers, Taraz and Liwa, with a deadweight of 8,000 tonnes, which will transport Kazakh crude oil by the Caspian Sea.
"Our republic and the UAE transport oil along the Aktau-Baku sea route on a parity basis. The two tankers received will fully cover the obligations of the Kazakh side to transport 750,000 tonnes of oil per year," KMG said in early July of this year.
In the short term, Kazakhstan and UAE plan to start building together tanker vessels for crude oil transportation in the open seas and the Caspian Sea, Mirzagaliyev said later.
KMG has told Interfax that orders for the construction of new tankers will be placed with a third-party shipyard since neither KMG nor AD Ports Groups have their own shipyards, so there is no possibility for their joint construction of tankers.
"We are looking into a possibility of placing orders for vessel construction with the shipyards based in Turkey, Korea, Europe, China, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. We are considering their proposals now," KMG said.
KMG is mulling over orders for the construction of at least two Aframax tankers with a deadweight of 115,000 tonnes for operation in the open seas and at least three Caspimax tankers with a deadweight of 12,000 tonnes for operation in the Caspian Sea.
AD Ports Group is the port, industrial and logistics operator of the United Arab Emirates, it is one of the largest holding companies in the region with a wide portfolio of large enterprises covering key sectors of Abu Dhabi's diversified economy. It manages several clusters covering ports, industrial cities and free zone, maritime, logistics and digital technologies.
KazMunayGas is the national operator for exploration, production, processing and transportation of hydrocarbons. The company represents the state interests in the oil and gas sector of Kazakhstan. KazMunayGas is owned by Samruk-Kazyna National Wealth Fund with 87.42% and by the National Bank of Kazakhstan with 9.58%. The free float is 3%.