Malaysian firm's Iraq tanker plan stalled

Singapore: Plans by Malaysian Merchant Marine Bhd. (MMM) to help rebuild the Iraqi Oil Tankers Co's (IOTC) fleet have stalled until the political situation in Iraq improves, a top company official said yesterday.

Malaysian-listed MMM signed a memorandum of agreement in 2004 with the IOTC to set up a joint venture called Iraqi Malaysia Oil Tankers Company in Dubai.

"Under that agreement we were first supposed to supply bunkers at Iraqi ports, and then later work with IOTC to help them rebuild their fleet," MMM's COO, Captain Panichellvam Ratnam, said.

IOTC, a unit controlled by Iraq's Ministry of Oil, was set up in 1972, and at one time had 20 tankers supplied by firms in Japan, Sweden, Norway and Spain, with a total tonnage of 890,000.

But its fleet was wiped out, with some tankers destroyed during the Iraq-Iran war, some in the 1991 Gulf War, while others were either sold or seized by other countries.

The Dubai-based joint-venture company was set up by IOTC and MMM, Malaysia's second-largest shipping concern in terms of fleet size, with a minimum capital of about $500,000.