Pietro Barbaro constructs tankers in Russia

Italian shipper, Pietro Barbaro, intends to construct a fleet of 12 crude tankers and carry nearly 1 million tons of crude and petroleum by river from 2009. The market analysts say Pietro Barbaro has chosen bad time for launching the business in Russia, where petroleum has been leaving rivers since past year.

Last year, Pietro Barbaro bought out Prime Shipping in Russia and set to constructing a fleet of 12 vessels. The orders were placed at Kostroma shipbuilder, PeLLa, Oks shipbuilder and Krasnoe Sormovo. Six ships ? two barges (4,600 tonnes each), two tankers (5,000 tonnes each) and two tow boats ? carried around 100,000 tons of petroleum in the test mode over the summer navigation. Putting the project into operation is slated for 2008 and all vessels could be used both for river and sea shipments.

The project budget is estimated at $100 million and Pietro Barbaro hopes the payback period will be from 10 to 12 years, as it will be able to annually derive $25 million from 2009 by carrying around 800,000 tons of petroleum. The key client of the company is TNK-BP, with which the Italians have sealed a five-year contract already.