Page 5: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (February 1986)

Boston Fuel Acquire Assets

Of Boston Towboat Co.

Boston Fuel Transportation, Inc. and Midland Enterprises, Inc. an- nounced recently that Boston Fuel

Transportation has entered into a contract to acquire the vessels, real estate, and other assets of Boston

Towboat Company, a Midland sub- sidiary, for an undisclosed amount of cash. The agreement was reached after months of negotiations with several prospective purchasers.

Boston Fuel Transportation, an affiliate of the Reinauer Transpor- tation Companies, was founded in 1932 and provides shiphandling ser- vices, petroleum transportation, as well as general and coastwise towing throughout the Northeast. Com- menting on the transaction, Ha- rold A. Reinauer, chairman, said that the addition of Boston Tow- boat's two 2,000-horsepower and two 3,000-horsepower tugs signifi- cantly enhances Boston Fuels capa- bilities, expanding its fleet to 15 tugs and enabling the company to handle any vessel which may call on the port.

Midland Enterprises, headquar- tered in Cincinnati, is one of the nation's largest barge carriers, oper- ating primarily on the inland waterway. Midland is a subsidiary of Boston-based Eastern Gas Asso- ciates. owners are buying secondhand ton- nage at a brisk rate. Laid-up ton- nage is at a three-year low, orders for new tankers are very scarce, and scrapping continues to boom.

Some freight rates, in particular for tonnage in the 80,000 to 100,000- dwt range, doubled during Decem- ber, producing a spinoff to other sectors including ULCCs and

VLCCs. During the last few weeks of the year, Greek owners snapped up about a dozen of the huge crude carriers, making their total pur- chases during the second half of 1985 more than seven million dwt.

The ULCCs are going at bargain prices. Thassos Maritime Enter- prises bought the 392,000-dwt Ber- lin, which cost $75 million to build 10 years ago, for about $5 million.

The tanker has been laid up for the past two years in a Norwegian fjord.

Some 15 VLCCs have been taken out of lay-up along the Greek coast to capitalize on the rising frieght rates and lower operating costs.

They will sail through the Suez Ca- nal in ballast to load crude oil in the

Arabian Gulf during the next two months. "We feel more confident of own- ers' fortunes in 1986 than we did at the beginning of 1985," Mr. Gibson said.

M.A.N.-GHH To Build

Floating Drydock For

Polish Shipyard

The recent order received by

M.A.N.-GHH of Oberhausen, West

Germany, for a 33,000-ton floating dock to be built for Gdanska Stocz- nia Remontowa shipyard in Gdansk,

Poland, is a continuation of a long and and successful collaboration.

The very first floating dock supplied by GHH was completed for a

Gdansk customer in 1877. The Dock is still in service today, though it has been moved to Howaldtswerke-

Deutsche Werft AG in West Germa- ny.

Contract price of the new dock is about $20 million. It will have an overall length of 800.5 feet, length over keel blocks of 771 feet, inside width 148.3 feet, and depth to upper deck of 59 feet. Water depth over keel blocks with the dock immersed will by 31.8 feet

When launched in October this year at GHH's Blexen dockyard on the lower Weser River, the dock will be delivered to the Polish trading company Navimor.

British Broker Reports

Surge In Tanker Rates,

Fall In Laid-Up Tonnage

London shipbroker E.A. Gibson said that the tanker market closed 1985 "on the highest note for some time," with a surge in freight rates during the last two months of the year. As a result, some Greek ship-

February 1, 1986

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