Seroja in bulk vessel JVs with Chinese coal importer

Singapore Exchange-listed firm Seroja Investments Limited (SIL) announced on Friday its wholly-owned subsidiary, Trellis Group Holdings Ltd (TGH), has entered into two joint venture agreements with a Chinese firm, Zhushui Energy Resource Group Co. Ltd (ZSE) on 19 November 2010, to jointly purchase two new 80,000 dwt bulk carriers.

Under the deal, both parties set up two newly incorporated joint venture vehicles, namely Seroja- Zhushui 3 Shipping Ltd and Seroja-Zhushui 4 Shipping Ltd .

ZSE and TGH had earlier in June jointly purchased a 1991-built Capesize dry bulk vessel.

The two vessels, which are being built at the purchase price of US$33.1 million each will be delivered in November 2011 and December 2011 respectively.

Zhushui Energy Resource Group Co., Ltd is a large importer of coal based in Guangzhou. Zhushui started the business of importing coal since 2003. It has imported coal from Adaro since 2005 and the Group currently imports coal from several Indonesian miners including PT Adaro Indonesia, PT Berau Coal and PT Kaltim Prima Coal. It also imports coal from Australia. In 2009 it imported a total of about 7.2 million metric tons of coal into China.

Seroja Group owns and operates a burgeoning fleet of 59 relatively young vessels comprising of tugboats and barges which navigate water around the Indonesian archipelago and international routes from Vietnam to Singapore. The Group provides chartering services of its tugboats and barges for the transportation of dry-bulk freight, consisting mainly of thermal coal, sand and other quarry materials, with the transport of thermal coal from coal mines to thermal power stations and cement companies which operate their own thermal power plants in Indonesia. The present purchase marked its seeped foray into dry-bulk shipping. It also has a joint venture with Louis Dreyfus Armateurs SA to focus on the general dry bulk shipping business from Indonesia. (alex)