Ukrainian industrial company Interpipe is considering options to lease (time charter) a second vessel to operate on the route from Odesa to Persian Gulf ports.
Oleksii Yanovskyi, the company's director for procurement and logistics, announced this in his column on the GMK Center website, the CFTS portal reports.
"The positive results and our accumulated experience confirm that time-chartering is the right approach to optimizing maritime shipments. The company currently has certain volumes of shipments to the Middle East, so we are preparing to lease a second vessel to operate on the route Odesa - Persian Gulf ports. We are currently working on creating and stabilizing a steady flow of cargo and selecting candidate vessels for long-term charter," Yanovskyi wrote.
Last year, for the first time in its history, Interpipe began operating a time-chartered vessel. This proved to be positive for the company not only in terms of saving transportation costs but also in terms of logistics management.
"Initially, we used it as a feeder, delivering pipes on the Odesa-Varna route. Later, however, the bulk carrier made several trips to Batumi, i.e., we diversified our routes. Thus, the chartered vessel could potentially operate throughout the Black Sea basin," he wrote.
According to Yanovskyi, the key factor in the decision to charter was the cost of transporting one ton of cargo. "Interpipe’s cost savings on the Odesa-Varna leg totaled almost 30% during the operation of the chartered vessel. The time charter allowed us to stabilize the rhythm of deliveries and reduce operating costs (in man-hours)," he wrote.
At the same time, Yanovskyi stated that Interpipe will not establish its own cargo fleet in the near future.
"This option has been thoroughly evaluated, and under certain conditions, purchasing a fleet could be more cost-effective than time-chartering. However, in the short term, the company will not pursue this strategy. The problem in this case is the increased liability and risk. In addition, such a significant investment must be fully justified. At the moment, the company does not foresee sustainable maritime export flows sufficient to justify the cost of purchasing its own fleet," Yanovskyi wrote.
