Though most ship manning firms in India have managed to remain afloat some are seeing unusual growth
Ship Manning companies in India seem hardly affected by the economic turmoil that has played havoc with shipping worldwide. With the exception of a few companies which had some of their ships, especially container vessels, getting mothballed, quite a few in fact are in an expansion mode and most other with just a little bit of belt tightening have remained intact.
The number of ship managing companies registered with the Indian flag administration has soared to168 and the number is still rising points out Capt SC Sood, Managing Director of IMS Ship Management (P) Ltd and former Chairman of Foreign Owners Representative & Shipmanagers’ Association (one of the two manning company trade organisation). “We do manning only of tankers,” he said. “Last year we handled 7 and this number has grown to 17 with the addition of 10 more vessels in the past 12 months. There is an increasing demand for Indian officers because of their strong educational background and the quality of training imparted to marine officers and rating here is high. With some cost cutting measures the going has been good.”
Capt Vinay Singh, Resident Director of Anglo-Eastern Ship Management (India) Ltd., and also Chairman of Maritime Association of Shipowners, Ship Managers & Agents, (the other trade body) states, “Our Company has seen a robust growth of 35% despite some shipowners having sold/scrapped some container vessels and laid up some new buildings. Since the last couple of months things have been looking up for most ship manning companies in India. Shipowners who want to cut costs have been coming to us. Crewing comprises of 65% of manning cost and we have reduced this down by taking Indian seafarers who are not as expensive as European. Besides, Indian marine officers can give better value for money.”
Arun Ahluwalia, Fleet Director of MSI Ship Management Pte. Ltd., informs that the financial downturn has had a limiting affect on their operations. “It has affected our ship owners directly. Yes, if our ship owners get affected we too feel the pinch sometime or the other. Our owners have decided to keep all new acquisitions in abeyance.”
Capt John Anthony, General Managerof MSI adds, “Since IMC enters into long term contracts it can withstand such financial crisis for a long period by cutting down the cost of operations, reduce spending to contain to the bare minimum of requirements.”
Gulf Energy Maritime (GEM) PJSC who recently opened their office in India to undertake manning here believes in long time measures. Ahmed Essa Hareb Al Falahi, CEO of GEM informs that shipping being a cyclic industry in the event of such raging fiscal storm one has to get set for the down turn and in order to prosper one has to budget accordingly for a 2 to 3 year period in advance and make preparation for any such eventualities. We have 17 tankers comprising of product and chemical tankers. The age of our fleet is just five years, the youngest being just a month old as we have taken delivery of this new building from the shipyard in September 2009 and we will soon be taking delivery of another vessel next month.