Amid disruptions linked to the West Asia conflict, India is moving to secure its energy shipping fleet, placing maritime capacity at the centre of economic resilience. State-run oil and shipping companies are lining up a large-scale vessel acquisition programme, floating tenders for manufacturing 28 vessels, including LPG tankers and medium range (MR) crude oil carriers, in FY27.

With geopolitical tensions repeatedly exposing the fragility of global energy supply chains, the government is accelerating efforts to plug a long-standing vulnerability on account of India’s reliance on foreign-flagged vessels to transport crude oil, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), liquefied natural gas (LNG) and refined products.

In this backdrop, the FY27 programme is part of a broader fleet expansion plan, under which India aims to invite bids for 62 vessels in the current financial year ending March 2027, adding roughly 2.85 million gross tonnage (GT) capacity at an estimated investment of ?51,383 crore. The push also reflects gaps in domestic fleet availability across segments such as container ships, green tugs, LPG carriers, crude tankers and dredging vessels.

Mukesh Mangal, Additional Secretary, Shipping Ministry, said the government has an aggregated demand for 437 vessels by FY42. Of this, the target is to invite bids for 62 vessels in FY27, with tenders already floated for 34 vessels so far. Last year, the government had come out with a package of Rs 70,000 crore to develop India’s shipping ecosystem.

“Our effort is that these orders should go to domestic players; for example, if somebody has to buy a VLGC or a VLCC. So, right now, these vessels are not being manufactured in India. If these orders should not go to foreign companies, then we should have some kind of manufacturing facility within India. So, we are developing ship manufacturing within our country and we have a target of floating tenders for 61-62 vessels within this year. Out of that, around 30-34 vessels tenders have been floated,” he added.

The broader objective, officials said, is to reduce external dependence, strengthen supply assurance during global disruptions, and anchor a self-reliant marine logistics ecosystem that can support India’s growing energy and trade requirements.

To address this, the Ministries of Shipping and Oil have operationalised a joint venture (JV) between Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) and oil and gas PSUs to drive bulk procurement. Under the plan, the SCI-led JV will float tenders for 34 vessels, while ONGC will separately invite bids for 25 vessels, together accounting for around 2.80 million GT and an investment of Rs 47,800 crore over the longer term till FY42.

As part of the one-year acquisition roadmap, ONGC has initiated global tenders for 12 platform support vessels and anchor handling tug boats, with a right of first refusal (ROFR) for domestic players. Bids for four vessels have already been floated. Parallelly, the SCI-PSU JV is moving ahead with tenders for 14 vessels, including very large gas carriers (VLGCs) and MR tankers, with 10 tenders already issued. SCI, as part of its independent business plan, has also floated tenders for two MR tankers.

Source: The Hindu Business Line 

#theshippingtribune #latestnews #shippingnews #dailynews #Maritimenews #shippingindustry #news #media #newsupdate #maritime #shippingnewsworldwide