Rosneft and Pietro Barbaro S.p.A. signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the scope of creating a Joint Venture (JV) in the area of international shipping, Rosneft says.
The signed document envisages the performance by working groups of the companies of a joint analysis of potential formats of the JV’s organization. The parties highly value the prospects of the implementation of the projects, taking into consideration the prominent synergetic effect of such an alliance in the area of international shipping of oil and oil products: Rosneft is one of the global leaders in the area of hydrocarbon production and refining, whilst Pietro Barbaro is a long-standing Rosneft partner and a leading company in the area of tanker shipping, holding an own fleet and possessing extensive capabilities in the area of hydrocarbon logistics and storage.
The parties expect that in case the results of the joint analysis will be approved by both companies, legally binding documents will be signed within 2016.
Commenting on the signed Memorandum, Rosneft Chairman of the Management Board Igor Sechin said: “We are glad about the effective extension of the cooperation with Pietro Barbaro: following our partnership in Russia, we are planning a joint approach to global markets. The Joint Venture will allow significantly boosting the efficiency of our logistics division; create additional marketing opportunities for our products in high-margin markets”.
Pietro Barbaro group owner Giovanni Barbaro underlined: “We shall put at the disposal of the Joint Venture our know-how and our passion for logistics. We are honoured and very proud to contribute to create value in this sector taking in consideration the potential of such a great company as Rosneft.”
In September, 1 2015 the Russian Joint Venture between Rosneft, Sberbank Investments and Pietro Barbaro S.p.A. closed the acquisition of the Pietro Barbaro Group shipping assets in the Russian Federation (100% share of Prime Shipping group of companies).
Prime Shipping is one of the leaders of the Russian river and sea transportation tanker market. The company has the ‘youngest’ river fleet (28 modern river tankers, barges and tug boats with the average age of 6 years). At the present moment Prime Shipping operations are focused on the transportation of Rosneft oil products within inland waterways of Russian Federation and adjacent seas.
Within the duration of the cooperation with Rosneft subsidiaries more than 11 mln t of oil products from the Saravtov refinery and the Samara group of refineries were shipped by the Prime Shipping fleet.
Currently the Prime Shipping owns and operates the ‘youngest’ river fleet in Russia (median age is 6 years), which was built by Russian and foreign shipyards in 2004-2012. Prime Shipping owns 18 river tankers with a 5000 – 7500 t deadweight, and 5 tugs. In addition to its own fleet Prime Shipping operates 5 third-parties ships, including tankers, barges and a supply boat.