Russian shipping company Palmali has opened the 2012 navigation season on the country’s inland waterways (IW), with first sailing of the company’s tankers from Rostov-on-Don to Volgograd in early April. Currently, all 60 vessels owned by Palmali of total tonnage of nearly 400,000 tons were deployed on the river.
During this navigation season Palmali will be transporting petroleum products from the ports of Turkmenbashi (Turkmenistan), Astrakhan, Octyabrsk (Samara Region), Nikolaevsk (Volgograd region), Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don and Taganrog to the ports of Kavkaz ports, Kerch and other ports based on the Black Sea, Marmara Sea and Mediterranean Sea.
In comparison with 2011 year, Palmali is set to boost oil products traffic to 100,000 tons a month. The company plans to increase the total volume of oil products shipped through Russia's inland waterways in 2012 to some 6-6.5 million tons.
Palmali Group is a shipping company operating in the Mediterranean, Caspian and Black Seas. Last year, transportation of oil cargo on Russia’s inland waterways by the Group’s fleet exceeded 4.5 million tons. Palmali Group is a major carrier of oil companies SOCAR (Azerbaijan) and LUKOIL (Russia) on the southern lines. The Group has been awarded long-term contracts for transportation of petroleum products with TNK-BP.
The Group operates a fleet of more than 100 vessels, including sea-going tankers of up to 180,000dwt and sea-going and river tankers of up to 8,000dwt tons flying Russia and foreign flags.