Grindrod enters the bunker trade

Terry Hutson
GRINDROD THREW its hat into the bunker pool last week with the announcement that its subsidiary Southern Tankers was acquiring two new bunker barges from a Chinese builder and would enter the bunker business from October next year.
The two barges, with options for others, will conform to IMO MARPOL legislation requiring double hulls by 2008 and will have triple screws for added manoeuverability.
All barges currently in service in South Africa lack double bottom hulls and have to be modified or replaced.
Alan Olivier, Grindrod’s CEO-designate, said there was a growing trend away from traditional pipeline deliveries. With the new IMO regulations this provided Grindrod with the opportunity to pursue its diversification strategy into this specialist marine activity.
Grindrod’s barges will have the capacity to load 4 500t of marine fuel oil, marine gas oil and marine diesel and deliver at the rate of up to 1 000t p/hr.
The barges will have sufficient power to handle the south-westerly “busters” in Durban and the notorious south-easters in the Cape.
Grindrod gave a tight delivery schedule and pricing as reasons for placing the barges with a Chinese yard.
Rajen Reddy, CEO of KZN Bunkers, the new name for FFS Bunkers, said that new barges for KZN Bunkers would be built locally.
“We’re a fully black economic empowered company and if we intend doing business in SA then we must not just milk the industry but also put back into the supply chain and show government that its trust in BEE will be repaid. That’s why I’m insisting we build new barges locally,” he told FTW.
He said KZN Bunkers was awaiting the outcome of a tender process before placing orders but had been assured the local yards could deliver in time. “I’m also confident that my company, which has been around for 23 years as FFS, will continue to have a role in the supply of bunkers to ships in port.”
Grant Bairstow, the newly appointed bunker operations manager for Smit Amandla Marine, said the company’s existing relationship with Sapref, the oil majors, SAMSA, brokers/traders and agents would ensure that Durban and Richards Bay continued to be the preferred choice for bunkering in southern Africa. He added that barge deliveries in Durban were expected to rise substantially in the future due to the planned closure of the pipelines for berth deliveries.