LABUAN:  Semua Shipping Sdn Bhd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Main Board listed Sumatec Resources Bhd, christened its seventh oil tanker, M.T. Semua Bersatu, and held a maiden voyage ceremony for her at the Sabah Shipyard here yesterday.

With the recent purchase of the tanker from Kuma Shipping Corporation in Japan, the company has further expanded its coastal oil tanker chartering business.

This new purchase was concluded barely three months after the takeover of Semua Shipping by Sumatec Resources Bhd., a clear manifestation of the latter’s strong confidence in its new diversification venture into this new business.

Sumatec is an established engineering and construction service provider for the oil and gas industry for the past 20 years.

It’s acquisition of the coastal oil tanker chartering business is part of the Group’s plans to broaden its earning base to include four related areas of the energy sector ~ marine transportation and logistics, hazardous waste management, oil storage and terminal operation as well as renewable energy.

M.T. Semua Bersatu is on a long term charter under Continuous Voyage Charter (CVC) with leading oil majors in Malaysia.

It has a capacity to ship about 5,500 MT of oil products.

At the ceremony yesterday, Managing Director James Chan told the guests, “Unlike other marine vessel operations which depend on offshore oil development contracts, the coastal tanker sector is a continuous growth area that expands in tandem with population growth and our nation’s continual expansion drive in industrialisation, making this type of business very stable”.

According to Chan, the coastal oil tanker business has few competitors because of the high entry requirement, such as the high price of the oil tankers and stringent safety requirement standards set out by the oil companies.

Semua Shipping Group of Companies currently owns a total fleet of six coastal oil tankers, all of which are on short and long term charter to Shell and ExxonMobil.

“We want to strengthen and generate a relatively stable income stream to stabilise and smoothen our earnings, expand our businesses into ancillary services of the oil and gas industry,” said Chan.