PAN examines joint venture to buy Patrick’s Bass Strait operation

<p>PAN Australia Shipping confirmed this morning (Friday, April 21) that it was considering entering into a joint venture with an as yet unnamed player to purchase the Bass Strait assets of Patrick Shipping once the sale to Toll Holdings had been completed.</p> <p>A condition of gaining ACCC approval to purchase Patrick Corporation was that Toll Holdings would divest Patrick’s Bass Strait shipping business, including the rights and benefits under customer contracts and arrangements.</p> <p>Toll must sell either Patrick’s berthing rights at Devonport or the berthing rights at Burnie, as well as the area currently occupied by Patrick at Webb Dock East, but only if the approved purchaser acquired them together with Patrick’s Bass Strait vessels.</p> <p>PAN Australia Shipping managing director Paull van Oost said the company’s new east&#47west coastal container service was already profitable and the company was investigating the feasibility of rotating its vessels into Bell Bay to pick up westbound freight.</p> <p>The opportunity to buy into the Patrick service was too good to miss, he said.</p> <p>The company’s second vessel, <em>Boomerang 2</em> , leaves Singapore tomorrow (April 22) to join the service and is scheduled to arrive in Sydney on May 4.</p> <p>A third vessel, the <em>Boomerang 3</em> , is expected to enter service four weeks later.</p> <p>The company would then be in a position to offer a fully-fledged weekly service, Mr van Oost said.</p> <p>He added that PAN management had been amazed by the response to the service to date. </p> <p>Already, it was "well past break-even" and major household names in logistics were on the verge of announcing that they would be switching the bulk of their cargoes from rail to sea.</p> <p>"Up to 80% of Pacific National’s rail freight on the east&#47west route is non time critical freight," Mr van Oost said. "Up to now these big players have not been looking at the sea, but with a consistent and reliable shipping service now available, they’re shifting to sea."</p> <p>Mr van Oost said international shipping lines had offered an alternative to rail on the east&#47west route, but had operated this on an "on tap" basis" as to when they had spare capacity.</p> <p>This was not attractive to logistics players looking to carefully plan their stock control and inventory management, he said.</p> <p>Mr van Oost confirmed that PAN was encountering some difficulties finding Australian crew to fill the berths on the three vessels, due to the growing shortage of seafarers.</p> <p>He said PAN was committed to working closely with the maritime unions on all issues &#8211 including sourcing crew from New Zealand.</p> <p>Any foreigners employed on PAN ships would be union members, have the appropriate work permits and would work under Australian wages and conditions, he said.</p> <br />