Thursday, January 31, 2008

Oman Gov gets deeper into the shipping business

Recent press reports of the Oman Government buying 10 oil tankers. For around 600 million rials. Of course, the Gov are already in the LNG tanker business (which was an excellent decision) and the tanker business (in partnership with Iran) via Oman Shipping (owned through the Ministry of Finance).

Its a strange decision. OK a tanker currently goes for around $100k per day to rent. But payback must be more than 12 years, assuming half the rent is in costs. Must do more research on this.

What I find frustrating is the Government never actually justifies any of their investments. Just these self-serving announcements reprinted in the press. Anyone out there have any scoop on this with real data/knowledge?

In other news, it was interesting to note the Gov changed out the Chairman of Omantel following the crazy deal to buy a useless and expensive Pakistani business from a well connected Omani businessman. Of course, no explanations.

No comments:

Post a Comment

If you wish to post anonymously, please pick a nickname by selecting the Name/URL option, or at least sign off your comment with one! I will delete comments I find objectionable or needlessly inflammatory. Sorry for the word verification.... OMG the spam has gotten BAD these past 12 months... trying to avoid making one log in...