P & O brand making comeback

[John Arton]

The P&O name, owned by DP world is making a comeback into container shipping.
Rgds
J.A.
https://splash247.com/po-maritime-mo...iner-shipping/

[happy daze john in oz]

Who now owns P&O?

I know the cruise side is owned by Carnival corporation here in Oz, not sure about UK arm.
Great to see a one time UK shipping company maybe coming good.

[Doc Vernon]

On Sunday 30 October 2005 The Sunday Times reported that P&O was in takeover talks with Thunder FZE, a wholly owned subsidiary of Dubai Ports World, a company owned by the government of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. On 29 November, the P&O board announced that it would be recommending an offer of 443 pence per share, worth £3.3 billion (US$5.7 billion) to its shareholders.^[13] In early December P&O regained its status as a FTSE 100 company when BPB plc was taken over. A bidding war commenced when Singapore's PSA International made a £3.5 billion offer, which Dubai Ports World then topped with a bid of £3.9bn (US$7bn).^[14] Despite speculation that it would make a higher bid, PSA withdrew, and in February 2006 shareholders voted in favour of the offer from Dubai.^[15] The combined group is the world's third largest ports operator ??????

[happy daze john in oz]

Thanks for that Vernon, wonder now if P&O sailing from Oz ports is still part of Carnival?

[Kevin Murphy]

The vessels in question (there are about 17 named after Russian Rivers) were built for TOPAZ (an UAE company with significant amount of offshore vessels bought by DP world & rebranded as P+O) for a construction project in Kazakhstan. A refinery was built in Modular form in Korea, transhipped on Heavy cargo lift vessels to Bulgaria & Finland, where the units were transhipped onto the Topaz vessels & Barges for transit through the Russian inland waterway system (max beam 16.5m) via St Petersberg in the North or the Volga Don Canal to a Caspian sea port in Kazakstan. Then a road journey on Modular trailers to the refinery about 70km away where it was put together like a big meccano set. The project was over 3-4 years.
No transportation approx October to April due the rivers freezing over. The vessels only carry deck cargo, they are principally designed as river vessels, thus will have class limitations. There has been a few pictures in Shipping clippings etc with them being used for carrying turbine blades. The vessels are all probably less than 6 years old.
I doubt this is P+O getting back into containers in a big way, just finding a use for the vessels. Hope that helps.

[James Curry]

P&O brand making a come back,? Well if they are going to be paying the Indian crews they are reportedly going to man P&O ferries. The pay is supposed to be £1.80 an hour.

[j.sabourn]

This subject could hold a number of pitfalls. In my era and most of all on this site the biggest outlay to a shipowner was on paper the depreciation of the vessel itself this was for taxation purposes.The next biggest claim was insurance costs. A lot of the insurance costing was based on the certification of the vessels crew and was one of the reasons why British at one time was considered the most capable of keeping those premiums down to sustainable costing. Crews wages and food and other sustainables were very minor in comparison. This was according to the ledgers of a well known Shipowner I was allowed to read. Today however these items seem by all accounts to have changed , and unless someone works directly in a shipowners office in costing a true and valid reason is not forthcoming . Myself think Insurance will still be the highest costing , but inclined to think any Tom Dick or Harry with whatever piece of paper he has is all going to be considered equal. This will again leave the only control the costing wizards are going to have is crews wages minor those savings are. JS

[happy daze john in oz]

John, you may well be correct about insurance.
It will be going up on all aspects of our lives over the next few years, floods here in Oz and the effects of the Virus on so many companies.

But somehow wages were never a big concern in the overall costings of running a ship, or the cost of food.
In some instances docking fees were a bit of a drag on profits.

[Julian Norman]

Would suggest that the P&O name is dirt after its treatment of its current ferry staff. There are plenty of old UK shipping companies to choose from. Would suggest P&O isn't one of them.

[vic mcclymont]

P&O Ferries have sent 40 Cadets home.
Vic