Quarterly October 2004 - Odfjell

(petro-)chemicals and about half amillion tons of base oil and lubricants.In addition, albeit of less importance toOdfjell, some 5 million tons of vegetableoils are imported per year. For India, thelargest budget expense after defenseexpenditures are imports of crude oil andclean petroleum products, which amountsRush hour commutingto about 100 million tons per year. Withinthe next couple of years LNG will be thename of the game.Slowly but surely over the last fiveyears, India has grown as an exporter ofchemicals and petrochemicals. The leadingplayer in this respect is the Reliance groupthrough their massive 27 million tons peryear refinery at Jamnagar and their multifeedgas cracker at Hazira on the WestCoast of India. Products like paraxylene,benzene, LAB and glycols, but also castoroil, fatty acids and groundnut oil, areregularly being exported in bulk. Inaddition there is a huge export and importof speciality chemicals in iso-tanks and drybox containers. India is one of the worldleaders in the production and exports ofbulk drugs and pharmaceuticals.Odfjell services to the IndianmarketOdfjell has served the Indian marketfor many years, and continues to havea prominent market presence. We haveone vessel each month from the USGulf via South Africa and one ship fromNorthwest Europe via the Mediterraneanand Suez. Both ships normally go to WestCoast India and Pakistan, and continueonwards to the Arabian Gulf. Two-threevessels a month come from North Africaand/or South Africa with phosphoric acid,primarily discharging in one or two portson the west coast of India. In addition wehave one vessel every three weeks fromSingapore to India/Pakistan and onwardsto the Arabian Gulf. On an averageOdfjell makes about 9-15 port calls everymonth.Cricket, the shared “religion” in Indiasuggest that we are moving in the rightdirection. Recently we have been ableto load export cargoes on some of ourpositions. With our total activity level inthe sub-continent at about 1.5 milliontons per year, we are firmly entrenched inthis crucial and interesting market.We do not expect the Indian importmarket to grow dramatically, and wehave been fairly selective as to how muchof the import business we should pursue.There are always more opportunitiesavailable, but this would not be the wellpaying cargoes. However, establishingthe proper import business to India isalso a question of how many vessels wewish to have open, to take care of ourcommitments from the Arabian Gulf.With the ever-increasing production andexports of (petro-)chemicals in the MiddleEast, it is imperative that we maintainour share of the India/Pakistan importmarket to bring tonnage into the area ona commercially sound basis.Odfjell India - Our local teamOdfjell India covers the markets of India,Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Thecompany started in New Delhi in 1987,and moved to Bombay in 1995 to focusmore on the growing chemical importbusiness which is primarily located on theWest Coast of India. The Odfjell India teamcurrently consists of seven people: SudeshKamath (joined the company 1988), AnupChatterjee (joined 1993), Hetal Vaishnav(joined 1996), Manisha Desai and SujataShetty (joined 1999) are taking care ofcommercial and operational matter, whileMahendra Patne and Suhas Kawale arecarrying out various other functions.We have a customer base in thesub-continent counting roughly 300companies with whom we are in directcontact, and due attention has to begiven to all. Four of us, led by Sudesh,are into marketing. We are visitingcustomers, domestic as well as in theneighbouring countries, keeping themupdated of our positions and followingup on inbound as well as outboundbusiness. Sujata is concentrating more onthe IT sector, which is also a major task. Inaddition to the marketing, we are closelycoordinating with the respective agentson West as well as East Coast of Indiaplus Pakistan, in order to achieve a quickturnaround for our vessels.Our share of the export market is stilllagging behind, but the last 18 monthsThe Odfjell India Team (from left: Anup Chatterjee, Suhas Kawale, Manisha Desai,Sudesh Kamath, Hetal Vaishnav, Sujata Shetty, Mahendra Patne)odfjell quarterly 11