Re: States buys fuel ships - "States wasted our money"

by GD Thu 29 Jan 2009, 3:28 pm

AN OFFER that could save the States millions on its fuel ships is on the table, the Guernsey Press can reveal today.

Earlier this month the Indian Chowgule Group, the shipping arm of which has a local subsidiary, contacted the Treasury Department with a proposal to buy at least one of the tankships the Policy Council has now secured and lease it back to the States.

It is understood that another major shipping company has also expressed an interest after it was announced that the States had bought the Vedrey Tora and Vedrey Thor for 17m. euros.

The Policy Council has consistently said the purchase of the two tankers was the only way to secure fuel supplies to Guernsey after the company that owned them, Svithoid Tankships, went into administration.

Most deputies are understood to be in the dark about the offers, despite being set to debate the purchase at the States sitting that begins today.

Advocate John Langlois is a director of the local Chowgule subsidiary. He was asked by the group’s directors to raise the question (thisisguernsey)

Seems like a few porkies have been told

by ted Thu 29 Jan 2009, 4:09 pm

I believe the States were right to by these tankers. If these new companies have come out of the woodwork, It is for one reason. They see the islands have restricted vessel capabilities, so a chance to make a quick buck and hold the public to ransom. keep the ships and keep control.

by plimmerton811 Thu 29 Jan 2009, 6:43 pm

Wasn't the idea to take control of the vessels to secure our "fuel" future. If that was the reason then we can not sell and lease from the purchasers cause that puts us in the same boat (no pun intended) as before.

by Digger Thu 29 Jan 2009, 7:42 pm

I tend to agree , if another company bought them they could in theory hold the island to ransome.

by Dave Jones Sun 01 Mar 2009, 12:03 pm

17 millon Euros for both of them

DJ

by karma Sun 01 Mar 2009, 12:38 pm

Better the devil you know I suppose (reluctantly)

by Dave Jones Tue 03 Mar 2009, 2:47 pm

The facts of the matter are these, firstly the purchase price for BOTH ships was a fraction under 17 million Euros. They are both under two years old with a projected life span of 25 years. The company went into liquidation overnight and all ministers were summoned to an emergency policy council meeting at 8.30 the following day which was a Saturday. The problems were laid out before us and a decision needed to be made fairly quickly for the following reasons. Firstly the administrators for the company were now in charge of the vessels, they had made it clear to all concerned that they had every intention of selling them both as quickly as they could. There were only 7 fuel ships in the world that were capable of serving Guernsey as they had to be double skinned, flat bottom ships suitable for drying out in St Sampson harbour. Had these two vessels been sold outside of European waters we could have found ourselves at the mercy of other tanker owners who already had lucrative busy contracts and may only have delivered to us as and when they could. [/size]

[size=12]That situation carried far too many risks and we need to have regular supplies for all the islands in our Bailiwick of heating oil, petrol and diesel and aviation gas, we have businesses and people who need to heat their homes, our aircraft, buses, trucks and private cars and other uses all of whom are absolutely dependant on fuel. The only sure way of being in charge of our own destiny was to buy the ships ourselves, therefore keeping complete control of our own supply network. The decision was made by the policy council that Charles and Lyndon would enter into negotiations with the administrators through a ships agent and try and agree a price, they were also given freedom to raise the offer if need be without referring back to the whole council. The whole thing was kept under wraps for very good reasons, firstly there were other bidders for these ships and we did not want the owners to know that a government was interested in them; as far as they were concerned we were just another private shipping agent making a bid. The second reason was that we believed at the time that if it had become common knowledge that our fuel supplies were under threat, that in turn may have caused some panic buying at the pumps which could have led to further unnecessary shortages as people stored large quantities of fuel in garages and sheds notwithstanding the safety issues of all that stored fuel. So the deal was done the Vedery Thor needs to have its tanks painted with some special paint or other and that’s about it, they will be crewed and operated by the agents we chose to buy them and from the publics point of view they will not notice any difference the real benefit to the people of Guernsey is that we are no longer at the mercy of others that is so often the case as owners these ships will go where we want them to go. Incidentally they will be delivering to other ports besides us, so we will get paid handsomely for those deliveries as well.

by Sponsored content