Oman Ship Management Company News

Oman Shipping Company (OSC) is reporting strong performance in domestic markets following long-term deals with local refineries and traders including ORPIC and OTI.OSC’s growth in the region is being driven by a 20-year contract to transport condensate for ORPIC (Oman Oil Refineries and Petroleum Industries Company) and a 15-year deal transporting methanol for OTI (Oman Trading International) from Salalah Methanol plant.The company is further supporting the export of LPG from Sohar Refinery to Yemen, Sudan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Oman Ship Management Company (OSMC) has staged a conference in India enabling seafarers to share best practices and expand industry knowledge.It comes as OSMC figures reveal growth in its managed fleet expanding from 27 to 38 in last two years, largely due to expansion in its chartering business. More than 100 delegates joined the Officer’s Conference at the JW Marriot in Juhu, Mumbai. The two-day event involved seafarers from OSMC fleet vessels, office staff, crewing agencies and industry experts such as from Shell, P&I Clubs and Lloyds Register.

Oman Shipping Company (OSC) is launching a new freight service linking all Omani ports to the United Arab Emirates by mid-April, 2016, in a move that aims to boost trade links. OSC’s new fortnightly Oman Express Service will be the first freight feeder operator to connect all Omani ports. It will be run by OSC subsidiary Oman Container Lines (OCL). OSC chief executive Tarik Mohamed Al Junaidi said the new service will be cheaper and faster than the road transport which currently handles all freight to the interiors.

Oman Shipping Company (OSC) has performed the naming ceremony for two new product and chemical tankers – the Muscat Silver and Rustaq Silver. The ceremony took place at the Hyundai Mipo Dockyard in Ulsan, South Korea. OSC will now take delivery of the Muscat Silver as part of a deal which will see 10 MR tankers delivered to it over the next year. All the vessels will be chartered to Shell International Trading and Shipping Company Ltd for its Project Silver, which consists of 50 new-builds. They will each operate worldwide with 20-strong crews - including a number of Omani officers. The Muscat Silver and Rustaq Silver are both 183 metres in length and 32.2 metres wide, with a depth of 19.1 metres.

Ten new medium range product tankers will join the fleet of state-owned Oman Shipping Company (OSC) in the next one year, taking the total strength of the fleet to 53 from 43 now, reports Times of Oman. According to the chief executive officer of Oman Shipping Company Tarik Mohammed Al Junaidi, the company will receive all 10 vessels between November this year and November 2016. The new vessels will be managed by Oman Ship Management Company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Oman Shipping Company. Al Junaidi said these ships are manufactured in South Korea by Hyundai. He said that about 2 years ago, Oman Shipping secured a deal with Shell for offering 10 mid-range product carriers.

Equally important, he said, is the need to safeguard the company’s Omani and multinational crew, some 600 of whom are at sea at any given time. “We spend a lot of money training our people. We use external consultants and have them sail on our vessels. We run through mock drills and mock attacks, provide citadels (safe rooms) on our ships, bulletproof film on the windows, body armour, razor wire, communications, and so on. This involves a big expense, but there is no alternative,” Capt Boyce told delegates on the second day of the TransOman Conference at the Grand Hyatt Muscat. In addition, the company spends significant sums on the deployment of private armed security guards on its vessels during sailings through piracy-prone waters.

At the 150th Annual Meeting of the Members of ABS, three industry leaders were elected to the ABS Council. Following the Annual Meeting, the ABS Council met and elected industry leaders to both its Marine and Offshore Technical Committees. Individuals serving on the ABS Council and the Technical Committees help guide the class society in fulfilling its mission of promoting the security of life, property and the natural environment. “Classification represents the concept of self-regulation for the marine and offshore industry,” said ABS President and CEO Christopher J. Wiernicki.

The Oman Shipping Company (OSC) has  signed an order for a new build LNG carrier with Hyundai Heavy based in Ulsan, South Korea. The LNG carrier, for delivery in 2014, will have a 162,000 cubic metres capacity, and is to be fitted out with dual fuel engines. The new ship will comply with European ‘Green Certificate’ requirements, and will have accommodation as a training vessel for up to six trainees and an instructor at any one time. OSC already owns and operates a fleet of five LNG carriers, which are all technically managed in-house by Oman Ship Management Company. Oman Shipping Company is a closed joint stock company, incorporated in 2003 and owned by the Government of Oman through the Ministry of Finance (80 per cent) and Oman Oil (20 per cent).

Oman Shipping Company (OSC) has taken delivery of the very large crude carrier Izki , in Okpo, South Korea, to be 13th crude carrier and 34th vessel in the multi-purpose fleet of the company. The ship, which was built by Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. Ltd (DSME), is one of the most modern OSC vessels having been supplied with the latest navigational safety equipment and technical outfits that enable the ship to operate best in different weather conditions. The Izki  has advanced ballast water treatment technology to comply with international conventions on the protection of the environment from the effects of transportation of ballast water and sediments around the world.

Oman Shipping Company S.A.O.C. accepted delivery of a Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC), SAMAIL, from Universal Shipbuilding Corporation, in Kawasaki city inJapan, becoming the 29th vessel to be operated by the company. The 300,000-dwt Panamanian flagged vessel SAMAIL measures 330 x 60 m with a draft of around 22 m. She will be the first VLCC to be technically managed "in house" by OSC’s subsidiary by Oman Ship Management Company S.A.O.C. in Muscat. With this addition, OSC now operates a diversified fleet of 29 vessels comprising of 10 VLCCs…