Indonesian oil and gas company PT Pertamina has ordered eight 17,500 DWT tankers from domestic yards for a total of USD 200 million.
The three local shipbuilders in charge of constructing the ships will be PT Anggrek Hitam Shipyard which will be building two ships, and PT Daya Radar Utama and PT Multi Ocean Shipyard-three ships each.
“We challenge domestic shipbuilding companies to build vessels with bigger capacity and of higher standards. The national shipbuilding companies must be able to build vessels that are allowed to sail worldwide, ” said Vice President of Pertamina’s Corporate Communications, Wianda Pusponegoro .
The local shipyards were employed as the country strives to boost its shipbuilding capacity and attain the capability of building 100,000 DWT ships as so far domestic shipyards have built vessels of smaller capacity.
Until now, the biggest ship built for Pertamina by a local yard had a capacity of 30,000dwt and is MT Fastron, constructed by PT PAL.
World Maritime News Staff