New Qatari owner takes second ship with another one lined up

One of the world’s newest shipowners has acquired its second vessel. S’hail Shipping and Maritime Services from Qatar has taken an unnamed 75,323 dwt panamax bulker and is close to securing a third ship.

Mohamed Khalifa al-Sada, S’hail’s chairman and managing director, said, “This vessel is strengthened to carry heavy cargoes, and being a larger sized vessel, she could carry more than 62,000 mt of gabbro from the UAE to Qatar, but only because of the draft restriction of 12.5 m in Mesaieed.”

He added, “Such gearless panamax vessels with higher cargo carrying capacity will be to the benefit of our local customers, who can now carry more gabbro in each shipment.”

The new addition to the fleet is currently booked for the next three months by local companies to carry gabbro.

The company’s board of directors has already approved the acquisition of its third vessel, likely to join S’hail’s fleet by the middle of this month.

Splash reported in February how S’hail had bagged its first ship, a 2001-built supramax.

At the end of last year S’hail said in a release that it planned to buy seven secondhand ships priced between $4.5m and $6m, searching for ships not older than 15 years for shipping construction materials in bulk.

The company has also revealed it aims to be on the Qatar Stock Exchange within two years.